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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
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t UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



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the 



CHURCH SCHOOL 



ITS OFFICERS. 




By J. H. VINCENT, D.-D. 



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$2^ 

'These thing-s command and teach." — St. Paul. 

' Ever}- g-oo.l wn-k of the: Spirit is a ministry."— St. Cmrysostom. 



NEW YORK : 
CA15LTOX & LAX AH AX. 

SAX FRANCISCO: K. THOMAS. 
C I X C I X X A T I : IF I T C II C O C Iv & W A L D K X. 

U'NDAV-SCinOL D E I* A 11 T M R N* T. 




Entered SCcTmTIng to Act of Congress, in the year 187*2, by 

CARLTON & LANAHAN, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Co mg #nurabU 

FATHER, 

WHO MADE THE HOME OF MY CHILDHOOD A PLACE OF 

PRAYER AND A SCHOOL OF PIETY J 

WHO TAUGHT ME THE WAY TO GOD'S . HOUSE IN MY 

INFANCY; 

WHO BROUGHT ME UP TO REYERENCE GOD'S MINISTERS ; 

WHO WAS THE FIRST .AND THE BEST SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

SUPERINTENDENT I EYER HAD; 

§Ub to ibe pitmorg jof mg precious m\b nob Steinteb 
MOTHER, 

WHOSE LIFE WAS FULL OF FAITH, AND SWEETNESS, AND 

STRENGTH ; 

WHO DID HER FULL DUTY TO HER CHILDREN ; 

WHOSE DEATH WAS A TRANSLATION; 

AND WHOM I LOYE MORE FONDLY TO-DAY THAN WHEN I 

KISSED HER LIPS FOR THE LAST TIME, 

TWENTY YEARS AGO ; 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

3s DebiccUeb. 




THE modern Sunday school has outgrown the fondest 
hopes of its founders. Devised as a temporary expe- 
dient for the education of neglected children on the Sab- 
bath, it developed a form of Christian activity which, in its 
essential features, was employed in the primitive Church, 
had also a place in the Jewish economy, and which is, in 
fact, a legitimate outgrowth of the plan of redemption. 

The good philanthropists of the last century, in digging 
that they might build a human fabric, laid bare an ancient 
and divine foundation. Let us rear our superstructure upon 
this, rather than upon their narrow bases and after their 
scantier measurements. 

This little work is written mainly for ministers, especially 
for the younger ministers of the Church. To them the 
author may speak more frankly and plainly than to his 
seniors. 



6 Preface. 

He has also sought to define the duties of other Church 
school officers, upon whose service so much depends : the 
superintendent, chorister, secretary, etc. 

The Church school is divine. Its officers should be di- 
vinely called and divinely endowed. The leader in this- 
department of Church labor is the minister. Every minister 
should be, in one sense, a Sunday school man. There is 
nothing in the service to compromise the dignity or diminish 
the influence of a true servant of Christ. It will not prove 
detrimental to his reputation or efficiency. The Rev. Dr. 
Tyng, for example, is no less acceptable as a pastor, preacher, 
or theologian, because he is pre-eminently a Sunday school 
worker. Even if the juvenile side of the cause be em- 
phasized a little unduly, it does not detract from its worth 
or nobleness. The apostles were not ashamed of the first 
sentence of their pastoral commission — Feed my lambs. 
It was no stain on their parchments. Nor did the apostolic 
dignity suffer loss by the faithful performance of this duty. 
Jesus, if in the flesh to-day, would be a " Sunday school man." 
He would again, as in ages agone, invite to him the " little 
children," and take them up in his arms, and put his hands 
on them and bless them. How charming the picture of the 
pastor, drawn by Bishop Tegner, and so exquisitely trans- 



Preface. 7 

lated by Longfellow. It occurs in " The Children of the 
Lord's Supper :" 

" Friendly the teacher stood, like an angel of light, there among them, 
And to the children explained he the holy, the highest, in few words, 
Thorough, yet simple and clear, for sublimit]/ always is simple. 
Both in sermon and song a child can seize on its meaning." 

But there is another side of the Sunday school equally worthy 
of our attention, which it is the especial aim of this volume 
to present — the adult department. Men and women are to 
be taught. Discipleship in the school of Christ is not sus- 
pended this side of Paradise. The minister is to be their 
chief teacher; the teacher of the subordinate teachers; him- 
self well taught ; skillful in teaching, and an example fit to 
follow. 

We want more Sunday school men in the ministry — men 
who understand the ecclesiastical relations and practical 
workings of the system, who have faith in it, love it, and 
have consecrated themselves to it ; who, neglecting no other 
part of their calling, seek to be "teachers of good things" 
to the old and to the young. " The whole man and the 
whole time are all too little in so great a work." Great 
is the reward of the true Gospel teacher. There is nothing 
comparable to it. Even to receive present testimony from 



8 Preface. 

those whom we have helped to the knowledge of the truth, 
is a blessing. Hear the rescued Mary in "Bitter Sweet" 
sing the praises of her counselor and friend : 

" He sat before me for a golden hour, 
And gave me counsel and encouragement; 
Till, like broad gates, the possibilities 
Of a serener and higher life 
Were thrown wide open to my eager feet, 
And I resolved that I would enter in, 
And, with God's gracious help, go out no more." 

Thank God that he has made us such gate-keepers to his 

kingdom in this life ! 

This little volume is far from perfect. The author feels 

its defects more keenly than the critic can see them. But 

it has its mission to fulfill, and so is sent out with faith 

and prayer. If any life is strengthened, if any ministry is 

quickened, if any Church is in the slightest degree aided 

by it,-^to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, 

be glory for ever. Amen. 

The Author. 
New York, April. 1872. 




CHAPTER PAGK 

I. Chkist and the Word n 

II. The Divine Methods 23 

III. The Two Schools 36 

IV. The School Method Demanded 51 

V. The Earlier Ages 65 

VI. The Pastor 99 

VII. The Children and the Church 137 

VIII. The Superintendent 149 

IX. Other Officers 157 

X. The Older Scholars 169 

XI. Collateral Aids 181 

XII. The Great Needs 189 

Appendix 203 



Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly ; in all wis- 
dom teaching and admonishing one another ; in psalms and 
hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts 
to the Lord. — St. Paul. 

Blessed are the undefiled in the way, 

Who walk in the law of the Lord. 

I will meditate in thy precepts, 

And have respect unto thy ways. 

I will delight myself in thy statutes : 

I will not forget thy word. 

Thy statutes have been my songs 

In the house of my pilgrimage. 

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 

And a light unto my path. 

Is not my word like as a fire ? saith the Lord; 

And like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ? 

And when they shall say unto you, 

Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, 

And unto wizards that peep, and that mutter : 

Should not a people seek unto their God ? 

For the living to the dead ? 

To the law and to the testimony : 

If they speak not according to this word, 

It is because there is no light in them. 



The word epevvaTe, which might be translated, " Ye search 
diligently," is very expressive. Homer, in the Iliad, (xviii, 
321,) applies it to a lion deprived of her whelps, who " scours 
the plains and traces the footsteps of the man." ... It is 
compounded of epsu, / seek, and evvr], a bed ; and is, says 
Chrysostom, "a metaphor taken from those who dig deep 
and search for metals in the bowels of the earth. They look 
for the bed where the metal lies, and break every clod, and 
sift and examine the whole in order to discover the ore." — A. 
Clarkf. 




<S«5> 



THE 



CHURCH SCHOOL AND ITS OFFICERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHRIST AND THE WORD. 
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. — Col. iii, 16. 

r I ^HE Bible is the word of Christ. He is its 
central and all-absorbing theme. To him 
all the history and poetry and prophecy of the 
Old Testament point. The Acts of the Apos- 
tles and the Epistles are as full of his person 
and work as the Evangelists themselves. 

The Bible contains the mind — the thought 
and love — that is in Jesus. Every fundamental 
principle of morals and religion which may 
legitimately be drawn from any portion of the 



12 The Church School. 

Bible as its manifestly intended interpretation, 
finds its center in Christ. There is no contra- 
diction between his character as portrayed by 
the Evangelists and the fairly deducted doc- 
trines drawn from any part of the sacred vol- 
ume. This is a great thing to say about the 
Book. It is an argument of weight in its favor. 
Think of it ! Sixty-six volumes, written by at 
least forty different persons ; at different periods 
of time — the extremes measuring over two thou- 
sand years ; written in different parts of the 
world ; under different forms of civilization ; 
under different governments ; in different lan- 
guages. Yet from these diverse sources come 
sectilia of a beautiful mosaic, which, when com- 
bined, form a unity the most perfect ; a doc- 
trinal scheme the most profound and philosoph- 
ical ; a picture glowing with poetic beauty, at 
the same time startling and enchanting the soul 
by prophetic visions ; while in all and through 
all there shines forth the image of One who is 
above his fellows, glorious with divinity an4 



The Church School. 13 

peerless as the ideal of a redeemed humanity. 
That Book must be divine. 

It is the word of Christ moreover in this 
sense, that it is the medium of his present 
power. Of every author it may be said, " He, 
being dead, yet speaketh." So the blind Homer 
gives light and inspiration to-day. But Jesus 
more, and in a deeper sense than Homer. The 
Iliad and the Bible are alike and unlike. The 
thought of their respective authors is embalmed 
in both. But in the one we have a tomb, full of 
commemorative pictures, the fragrance of the fu- 
nereal incense still lingering on the air, a place 
of beauty and inspiration and sacred memory ; 
but, after all, in the central sarcophagus the author 
lies — dead. But the Bible is no tomb. Its author 
is not dead. Its delights are not those of mem- 
ory and imagination, for the living Christ is in 
his word. Mystically, invisibly, but really, is he 
present there. The Book is his divine body. 
We need not ascend into heaven to bring Christ 
down from above. We need not descend into 



14 The Church School. 

the deep to bring up Christ again from the 
dead. Do we seek him ? Would we see Jesus? 
Here is the Gospel reply to our search, " The 
word is nigh thee." Rom. x, 8. Lo ! here in 
the Scriptures is this same Jesus whom shep- 
herds and wise men worshiped, whom the mul- 
titudes thronged in the days of his flesh, whom 
soldiers crucified, and Joseph buried, and the 
eternal God raised up from the dead. He is 
here in his own word, a living presence, ready 
to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
healing to the leprous, deliverance to the demo- 
niac, life to the dead, and pardon to the guilty — 
the erring Magdalenes, the troubled Marthas, 
the unstable but repentant Peters. Seek ye the 
Lord Christ ? Find him in his word. 

The whole gracious work of redemption is 
wrought through the mediumship of this word. 
Life is a probation and a pupilage, in which 
man must be born again and then trained for 
eternity. From the moment of his regeneration 
the processes of spiritual culture should go on. 



The Church School. 15 

This twofold work of quickening and culture is 
effected by the Holy Ghost. But the Holy 
Ghost operates through the truth as revealed in 
the Holy Scriptures. This is the sharp blade 
that penetrates the inmost things of the soul, 
and lays open to self-consciousness the fearful 
condition which requires a gracious interposi- 
tion. " For the word of God is quick, and pow- 
erful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul 
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is 
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." Do we seek converting influence ? 
Look not to the u glory of God " in the heavens, 
nor his "handiwork" in the firmament. Seek 
it not of the sun, though "his going forth is 
from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the 
ends of it : and there is nothing hid from the 
heat thereof," but turn to the word of God in 
revelation and learn that " the law of the Lord 
is perfect, converting the soul." Do you seek 
spiritual enlightenment? "The entrance of 



1 5 The Church School. 

thy words giveth light." Do you seek regen- 
erating power ? " Of his own will begat he us 
with the word of truth." Man is " born again, 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by 
the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
ever." 

What blessings in the whole range of spirit- 
ual life and experience do you seek ? Preserva- 
tion from sin ? " Thy word have I hid in mine 
heart, that I might not sin against thee." Sta- 
bility ? " The law of his God is in his heart ; 
none of his steps shall slide." Success in prayer? 
" If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, 
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you." Strength of character and victory 
over the enemy of souls ? "I have written un- 
to you, young men, because ye are strong, and 
the word of God abideth in you, and ye have 
overcome the wicked one." Spiritual freedom ? 
" If ye continue in my word then are ye my dis- 
ciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free." Sanctification ? 



The Church School. 17 

" Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is 
truth." Do you aspire to the attainment of that 
holy character in which you shall be " partakers 
of the divine nature ? " Then go to the Gospel 
of Christ, in which " are given unto us exceed- 
ing great and precious promises ; that by these 
ye might be partakers of the divine nature, 
having escaped the corruption that is in the 
world through lust." Go through the Book, from 
the bold words of the first verse, "In the be- 
ginning God created the heaven and the earth," 
to the blessed benediction of the last verse, 
" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
you all," and learn by a precious experience 
that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteousness : 
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." 

Seeing that the word is so important an ele- 
ment in the work of grace, I do not wonder at 
the song of David concerning the man whose 



18 The Church School. 

" delight is in the law of the Lord," and who in 
this law doth " meditate day and night/' Verily 
he " shall be like a tree planted by the rivers 
of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his sea- 
son ; his leaf also shall not wither ; and what- 
soever he doeth shall prosper.'' I now under- 
stand why he sang : " O how I love thy law ! 
it is my meditation all the day. Thou through 
thy commandments hast made me wiser than 
mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I 
have more understanding than all my teachers : 
for thy testimonies are my meditation. I un- 
derstand more than the ancients, because I keep 
thy precepts. . . . The law of thy mouth is bet- 
ter unto me than thousands of gold and silver. 
. . . How sweet are thy words unto my taste ! 
yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. . . . My 
soul hath kept thy testimonies ; and I love 
them exceedingly." 

The tradition concerning Jonathan Ben-Uz- 
ziel, one of the pupils of Hillel, is in a spiritual 
sense fulfilled in the devout student of the word. 



The Church School. 19 

It is recorded of him that " when he studied 
the law every bird that flew over his head was 
burned up." So glorious and vivid and intense is 
the light that falls from heaven upon every sin- 
cere disciple of Jesus who sits before the open 
Book to learn of his Master. So also the ancient 
maxim of the Jew is realized in the better 
dispensation of the Gospel : " In whatsoever 
place the law is, there the Shekineh is present 
with it." 

This is the mystery of the Book ; a sealed 
Book to the multitude ; a literary marvel in- 
deed, a reliable history, a volume of poetry and 
ethics and sublime speculations to the candid, 
thoughtful, unilluminated student— but to him 
whose secret heart the Lord hath opened — lo ! 
in the word is the Lord himself! 

If this be the relation of Christ to his word 
there is need that the modern Church of Christ 
in its quest of the Master be told where he is 
to be found. O that some apostle would cry 
aloud unto the Churches of the age, as Paul to 



20 



The Church School. 



the elders of the Ephesian Church when he 
met them at Miletus : " And now, brethren, I 
commend you to God, and to the word of his 
grace, which is able to build you up, and to give 
you an inheritance among all them which are 
sanctified. ,, 




And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be 
in thine heart : and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine 
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou 
liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind 
them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets 
between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the 
posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 

Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. 
Honor thy father and mother, (which is the first command- 
ment with promise,) that it may be well with thee, and thou 
mayest live long on the earth. 

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but 
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be 
damned. 

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized : 
and the same day there were added unto them about three 
thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apos- 
tles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
prayers. 

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that 
they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 

And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom 
when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto 
them, and expounded unto him the way of God more per- 
fectly. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE DIVINE METHODS. 

"In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another." — 
Col. iii, 16. 

r I ^HERE is a true method observed by the 
God of all grace in his gracious work 
among men. He saves, but not arbitrarily, nor 
in violation of established intellectual and moral 
laws. The truth is the medium of the Holy 
Spirit. Without the accompanying energy of 
the Spirit, the truth itself would be impotent. 
Let us never forget this. Jesus was nothing 
but a man, a Jew, a Nazarene, to multitudes in 
his day. " There went virtue out of him " to 
those who sought him in the right spirit. So 
must we seek not the word alone, but Christ in 
the word. 

When, however, the saving truth is sought 



24 The Church School. 

and applied, no violence is done to either man's 
freedom or the laws of his mental action. Light, 
whether from the sun or the planets, is conveyed 
to the eye through the same medium, and under 
the operation of the same laws. The constitu- 
tion of the soul is not changed by the super- 
natural interventions of redemption. After the 
visitation of grace the eye sees, the ear hears, 
memory goes backward, hope goes forward, and 
all the intellectual powers act just as before. 

The Divine Deliverer and Educator of the 
race has respected man's constitution in deter- 
mining the methods of his redemption. Were 
a street-waif to be taken from the Five Points 
in our city, and taught under the most compe- 
tent instructors of the age, we affirm that not a 
just principle would be recognized, nor a cor- 
rect method adopted in his training, not already 
anticipated and applied in the management of 
the waif Israel taken from the land of Goshen, 
and instructed in the school of God at Mount 
Sinai. The same principles appear again, in a 



The Church School. 25 

higher form, in the methods of the Great 
Teacher. They are also present in his Church 
whenever she is under his direction, for they 
inhere in the very constitution of the human 
mind and of the Christian society. 

In the instruction of a human soul there are 
three important steps to be taken : 1, Truth 
must be apprehended by the intellect ; 2, Ac- 
cepted by the affections ; 3, Appropriated — in- 
corporated in the character. This threefold 
work is indispensable. One wanting, the cul- 
ture is incomplete. In the Divine scheme all 
are recognized, and for each an appropriate form 
of Church instrumentalities is arranged. 

We have referred to Israel in Egypt and the 
Wilderness. Let us trace the divine processes 
in the education of this people to illustrate the 
position assumed. Israel was, first of all, re- 
moved from' the physical, intellectual, and moral 
bondage of Egypt, just as the child of the Five 
Points would be separated, for his reform and 
education, from his former associations. Israel 



26 The Church School. 

did not go into Canaan by the way of el-Arish 
and Philistia, but by the more circuitous route 
of the Sea, Sinai, and the Jordan. The bond- 
men of Egypt were not at once prepared for 
the Babe of Bethlehem. They dwelt in the 
sphere of the material, and were ignorant of 
spiritual truth. The manifestation of physical 
force was requisite in order to the recognition of 
their Deliverer. God must needs appear as a 
Power, breaking into fragments and trampling 
under foot their old opinions and dominions. 
The new wonder-w T orker must distance, with 
unmistakable miracle, all competition from the 
old magician. For the cup of blood in the 
sorcerer's hand a river of blood must roll to 
the sea. The new stafif-serpent must swallow 
the conjurers' rods, and become a wand in the 
Prophet's grasp again. As the rap of the teach- 
er's hand on the school desk reminds the pupil 
of a present authority, so " the thunderings and 
the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, 
and the mountain smoking," caused the people 



The Church School. 27 

tremblingly to await, and then revere, the reve- 
lation. The fixed attention was rewarded. 
Truth was given. It came in every legal and 
ceremonial enactment, in every miraculous in- 
terposition, in every address of God's Prophet. 
In the communication of this new truth to 
Israel, how beautifully we find illustrated the 
now popular method of " object teaching.'' 
Spiritual truth entered the Hebrew soul through 
the gateways of the senses. The theology of 
the New Testament was embodied in the ar- 
rangements and ceremonies of the Tabernacle. 
The Jewish dispensation was a " school-master" 
to bring the Hebrew race and then humanity 
to Christ. They stretched out over the world 
the forms of their theological thought — cables 
laid through every sea, and in thread-like ex- 
tensions reaching every land. When Christ 
came and the Spirit was poured out, these 
forms became suddenly instinct with evangel- 
ical life. 

Thus we find that for the communication of 



28 The Church School. 

truth to a race, the all-wise God prescribed the 
very methods which wise teachers now employ 
in developing the intellect of a child. 

Jesus did likewise. He laid hold of the vis- 
ible, using similes, parables, and objects, as 
when he placed a child before the disciples to 
teach them humility, or called for a penny and 
made its superscription his text. In the de- 
partment of religious truth the same method is 
still employed. What is the Christian family 
but the object-school of theological truth, in 
which the authority, attributes, and laws of 
God are illustrated, and the child taught, 
through the visible relations and real expe- 
riences of daily life, the invisible and eternal 
verities of the kingdom of God ? The Chris- 
tian family is the tabernacle for the communi- 
cation of religious ideas to its children, sepa- 
rated as they there are from the demoralizing 
tendencies of worldly society, and under the 
influences of parental love and authority. Thus 
God provides for the first essential thing in the 



The Church School. 29 

application to man of his grace in redemption — 
the apprehension of truth by the intellect. 

The truth grasped by the intellect must next 
be accepted by the will and affections, for truth 
is never a force in life until the heart is moved 
and molded by it. The pupil in the secular 
school must be excited, by personal interest in 
his work, to self-activity. Israel in the wilder- 
ness learned the same lesson. With every 
revelation of truth God made new requisitions 
upon their love and obedience. By the strong- 
est mandates of authority, by the most terrible 
sanctions of penalty, by the fairest attractions 
of promise, God commended the new truth to 
the heart as well as to the eye and intellect of 
his people. 

As contributing to this result, the people 
were assembled in great multitudes, from time 
to time, to hear the law of God and the appeals 
of his servants. The Scriptures, which the 
services of the tabernacle and the providential 
interpositions of God had made clear to their 



30 The Church School. 

understanding, were publicly read. On every 
such occasion the heart of the people was 
stirred. The blessings and the cursings rang 
out in the valley of Shechem, and the elders, 
officers, and judges, "the women and the little 
ones, and the strangers that were conversant 
among them," listened attentively. The out- 
spoken response of " all the people " elicited at 
that time was a virtual consecration of them- 
selves to God. 

When Joshua addressed all the tribes before 
his death, after his fervent appeal to them to 
" fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and 
in truth," he bids them make their choice be- 
tween the God of Israel and the gods of the 
Chaldeans and the Amorites. Under the pres- 
sure of this public review of God's dealings 
with them, and this impassioned appeal of the 
venerable leader, the people cry out, " God 
forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve 
other gods ! " 

How was the heart of the people moved by 



The Church School. 31 

the public services performed in Jerusalem, 
when the corner-stone of the new temple was 
laid in the time of Ezra. And when the people 
gathered themselves together as one man to 
hear Ezra read from the book of the law of 
Moses, it is recorded that ""all the people wept 
when they heard the words of the law." 

There was a profound reason in the command 
to " gather the people together, men, and 
women, and children, and thy stranger that is 
within thy gates, that they may hear, and that 
they may learn, and fear the Lord your God ; 
and observe to do all the words of this law." 
Deut. xxxi, 12. The public assembly is favora- 
ble to the development of strong emotion. The 
truth, which may be more distinctly outlined to 
the thought in private, may be more easily im- 
pressed upon the heart in public. To the 
tabernacle system for the conveyance of the 
religious idea, God added the public assembly 
for the awakening of the sensibilities, and the 
persuasion of the people to accept and obey the 



32 The Church School. 

truth. So to-day we have the family tabernacle, 
and then the pulpit. The first and distinctive 
work of the pulpit is to convict the conscience 
and convert the soul. " We persuade men," 
said Paul. " We pray you in Christ's stead, be 
ye reconciled to God." 

Addressing those whose conscious needs re- 
spond to its announcements, the pulpit does 
not so much depend upon processes of argu- 
mentation. It brings available remedies for 
actual distresses, a message of reprieve to 
the condemned, vision to blindness, purity to 
sin. It informs the intellect, quickens the 
conscience, warms the emotions, and impels 
to decision ; not so much starting the in- 
tellectual forces into activity, as bringing the 
will up to the well-established affirmations of 
the judgment. 

The . pulpit disseminates the truth rapidly. 
One utterance may reach ten thousand souls at 
the same moment. The invisible bond of sym- 
pathy that unites an audience, renders each 



The Church School. 33 

hearer more accessible and susceptible to the 
truth. The universal silence, the fixed atten- 
tion, the tacit assent of all to the truth declared, 
tend to inspire the speaker. The whole argu- 
ment is in his own hands. No voice can enter 
its protest. Then the dramatic elements of 
countenance, gesture, and intonation, increase 
the effect of every sentence. These are some 
of the natural advantages possessed by the pul- 
pit. And when we recall the Divine promise 
to accompany the truth by the energy of his 
Spirit, we do not wonder at the power of this 
instrumentality. 

To the Jew, lost in the mummeries of a dead 
ritualism — to the Greek, deluded by the charms 
of a merely speculative philosophy — we are not 
surprised that the public proclamation of salva- 
tion through a crucified yew should be " fool- 
ishness ; " but seeing now the bearings of the 
truth preached, and the effectiveness of the 
method, and having enjoyed the fulfillment of 
. the promise, " Lo, I am with you/' we acknowl- 

3 



34 The Church School. 

edge the preaching of the Gospel to be " the 
power of God." 

After the truth has found a place in the under- 
standing through the early teachings and clear 
illustrations of the Family, and in the affections 
through the appeals and persuasions of the Pul- 
pit, the convert enters the inner courts of the 
Church as a disciple. He has now commenced 
a life of study, struggle, and service. He is a 
sort of soldier-student. It is his duty to build 
up the temple of God within him. And he 
must build as they did in Nehemiah's day, when 
"every one with one of his hands wrought in 
the work, and with the other hand held a 
weapon." Here begins the School of Christ. 
Having made "disciples," the Church must in- 
struct them. An eminent commentator, in his 
notes upon Acts xiv, 22, says : "The word dis- 
ciple signifies literally a scholar. The Church 
of Christ was a school, in which Christ him- 
self was chief master, and his Apostles subor- 
dinate teachers. All the converts were disciples 



The Church School. 35 

or scholars who came to this school to be in- 
structed in the knowledge of themselves and of 
their God ; of their duty to him, to the Church, 
to society, and to themselves. After having 
been initiated in the principles of the heavenly 
doctrine, they needed line upon line, and pre- 
cept upon precept, in order that they might be 
confirmed and established in the truth." * 

* The wording of the Master's commission (Matthew xxviii, 
19, 20) deserves our consideration : " Go ye therefore and 
teach ((ia$7jT£voaT£, that is, disciple, or make disciples of) all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching ((hduGKovrec, that is, 
instructing) them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you." " This teaching is nothing less than the build- 
ing up of the whole man in the obedience of Christ. In these 
words, inasmuch as the then living disci^ les could not teach 
all nations, does the Lord found the office of preachers in his 
Church — with all that belongs to it — the duties of the minis- 
ter, the school-teacher, the Scripture-reader. This ' teach- 
ing ' is not merely the K?]pvy/ia of the Gospel, not mere 
proclamation of the good news, but the whole catechet- 
ical office of the Church upon and in the baptized." — 
Alford. 

When through baptism the believer had become a member 
.of the community of the saints, then, as such, he participated 



36 The Church School. 

Thus, for the threefold work committed to 
her, we find the Church assuming a threefold 
form: 

i. To present the truth illustratively and 
clearly to the understanding, we have the 
Family. 

2. To secure a personal allegiance, we have 
the Pulpit. 

3. To mold and perfect character, after the 
standard and by the operation of the truth, we 
have the School. 

in the progressive courses of instruction which prevailed in 
the Church."— Olshausen. 

The teaching is a continuous process — a thorough indoc- 
trination in the Christian truth, and the building up of the 
whole man into the full manhood of Christ, the author and 
finisher of our faith. — Dr. Schaff. 




Instead, therefore, of regarding the present position of the 
Sunday school as a false and anomalous one, we see in it the 
agency of a divine hand. We recognize it as an instrument of 
the Church, acting in the twofold capacity of a conservative 
and aggressive power ; or, in the first, as auxiliary to the 
pastoral function ; in the second, as auxiliary to the missionary 
function. We consider it in these aspects, not as a mere 
accident in the Church's history ; not as a merely temporary 
expedient, to be used for the accomplishment of certain ends, 
and then to be laid aside ; but as an essential part of the 
existing life and activity of the Church. The Sunday school 
system is not a mere tool in the hands of the Church ; but a 
limb, that can never, hereafter, be lopped off without maiming 
her. — John M'Clintock, D.D., LL.D. 

The second great function of the Church, as defined by our 
Lord in his commission, is to organize those who have been 
converted and become believers in him into congregations or 
Churches ; that is, by making disciples, pupils, learners, or 
students of them ; or, in other words, by the solemn badge of 
baptism associating together as many as can conveniently 
meet in one place and unite in common services, as scholars 
in Christ's school. Baptism is the appointed form of initia- 
tion into this school, and is analogous to the ticket of 
matriculation in our schools of learning. Into this school 
every convert, young and old, are to be introduced as schol- 
ars, so that, to be a member of a Church, in the language of 
Christ's commission, is to be a pupil or scholar in one of 
Christ's Churches. Every Church is, therefore, according to 
Christ's commission, a school. And as both the preaching 
and teaching services of the Church are to be conducted on 
the Lord's day, (which is commonly called Sunday or Sab- 
bath,) a Sunday or Sabbath school is required by Christ's 
commission as essential to a Christian Church. — Thomas 
Smyth, D.1X 



CHAPTER III. 

THE TWO SCHOOLS. 

"Thy stranger that is within thy gates." — P^XOD. xx, 10. 

" Building up yourselves on your most holy faith." — Jude 20. 

r I A HE theory underlying a moral instrument- 
■*• ality has more to do with its efficiency 
than might at first be supposed. The prestige 
of ecclesiastical recognition, and much more of 
Divine authority, gives great advantage to any 
method of Christian effort. The fact that it 
has a philosophical fitness at once ennobles it in 
the esteem of men who judge of a method by 
its antecedent principles, and accept what is 
logically true, even without reference to its effi- 
ciency in practice. 

If we can show that the Church school has 
its place in the system of divine methods, a vir- 
tual divine authority, a rational basis, and the 



40 • The Church School. 

indorsement of early example, we may enlist 
valuable talent in its support, and, on the other 
hand, guard with greater certainty against the 
lamentable neglect of other means of grace 
which a one-sided view of the Sunday school 
has occasioned. 

If the institution is regarded as a substitute 
for the Christian family, we need not be sur- 
prised if parents accept its service, and neglect 
responsibilities at home from which nothing can 
justly relieve them. If we make it a substitute 
for the pulpit, we may expect its members to 
neglect the ministry of the word, and thus 
foster the unpleasant antagonisms between 
" Church and Sunday school/' between " Pastor 
and Superintendent/' over which so many faith- 
ful hearts have already mourned. If it is for 
children only, since children in these days so 
soon pass into maturity, becoming adults ten 
years earlier than was the wont a century ago, 
we need not be surprised if our youth, as soon 
as parental restraint is relaxed, drop out of the 



The Church School. 41 

school, and, not having been trained to attend 
"public service/' find it convenient to neglect 
that also. If only for children, since it is com- 
monly supposed that labor in their behalf re- 
quires " peculiar gifts," and these not always in 
highest repute among the " theologians," we 
need not be surprised that large numbers of 
ministers look down with a lofty condescension 
upon the institution, patronizingly commend it, 
and then neglect it. 

But before the Church school claims our 
notice we must look to another form of evan- 
gelical labor, now and for the past century 
known as the " Sunday school." 

The pious Jew, in obedience to God's com- 
mand, taught the traditions and explained the 
symbols and ceremonies of the Jewish faith to 
the " strangers " as well as to the sons of his 
household. The truth of God was committed 
to Israel almost exclusively for a time, that 
Israel might afterward proclaim it to all nations. 
This temporary limitation was in order to the 



42 The Church School. 

wider extension of God's kingdom. For cen- 
turies the darkness of the Gentile world felt no 
ray from the fire God was kindling upon Jewish 
altars. These were centuries of preparation. 
At last the flames blazed up, and the darkest 
darkness of Gentile heathendom was lighted 
by the divine truth. The Gospel was in the 
tabernacle and the temple long before Parthians 
and Medes, Elamites, Grecians, and Romans 
heard of it. But, true to its divine missionary 
impulse, even while under limitations it sought 
out and blessed the Gentiles within its reach. 
It could not yet go back to Egypt, but it could 
care for the Egyptians who followed with Israel 
the pillar of cloud and of fire. The " mixed 
multitudes," " the strangers " of the camp, were 
made partakers of the blessed privileges vouch- 
safed to Israel. To this home missionary ele- 
ment in the Jewish system we call attention. 

The " strangers " there were in a minority. 
The Jewish homes absorbed and trained them. 
Times have changed. The old limitations have 



The Church School. 43 

been removed. The world is now our parish. 
The perishing millions are within our reach ; 
but the Christian home may no longer absorb 
and educate the unchristian element of society. 
We could not by any possibility bring a thou- 
sandth part of the accessible " strangers " to 
our family altars. They are at, but not within, 
our gates. They will not come to the sanctuary. 
Our pastors cannot reach them. 

Shall these " strangers," provided for under 
the Jewish, be neglected under the Christian, 
dispensation ? But what shall we do ? Behold in 
the modern mission school a divine provision for 
the new necessitv. Coming forth from the fire- 
sides where it has, like the ark of God, abode 
for centuries, it proposes to do for the " stran- 
gers " to-day, under new circumstances, and by 
different methods, what it formerly did within 
the Hebrew home. The God who established 
it there has led it forth for a larger work. It is 
a Christian home outside of home. It teaches 
children who never received religious counsel 



44 The Church School. 

from father or mother the value of the word 
of God and of prayer to God. It gives them 
teachers who watch over their souls with 
mother-like tenderness. It secures for them 
what is equivalent to pastoral oversight. It 
brings them to the Church and the Cross. It 
puts sacred songs upon lips that have been 
accustomed to curses. It raises up from the 
heathen masses around us material out of 
which are made consistent Christians, good 
citizens, philanthropists, teachers, presidents 
and professors of colleges, preachers and mis- 
sionaries, The mission Sunday school is thus 
a substitute for the family, the pulpit, and the 
uastorate. It does for the " stranger " what 
the parent should do for the family. 

How blessed the mission, and how abundant 
the successes of this comparatively modern expe- 
dient for saving and instructing " the stranger 
within our gates ! " It is John the Baptist 
pointing the untaught multitudes to the " Lamb 
of God." It is the true god-mother of the 



The Church School. 45 

Church, folding to her bosom the orphaned 
ones, and giving them up in holy consecration 
to God. 

But our Church school is quite another insti- 
tution. It is composed largely of the children 
of Church members. It is not intended to be a 
substitute for the family, the pulpit, the pastor- 
ate, or the secular school. Nor is it designed 
to be exclusively a children's institution. 

What, then, is the Church school ? It is that 
department of the Church of Christ in which 
the children, youth, and adults, of the Church 
and community are thoroughly trained in Chris- 
tian knowledge, Christian experience, and Chris- 
tian work. It co-operates with the family and 
the pulpit. It depends upon the ministry of 
the Holy Ghost. It takes for its text-book the 
Holy Scriptures. It is the training department 
of the Church. It is not merely for conversion. 
If that work has been neglected in any case, 
then conversion is the first thing to be sought. 
But the main thing: in the Church school is the 



46 The Church School. 

development, training, and growth of the disci- 
ples, old and young. It is not merely a biblical 
school for intellectual furnishing: in divine truth. 
It is for spiritual edification. It is not merely 
for children, but for Christians of all ages. As 
preaching and the accompanying services of 
the sanctuary are for children as well as adults, 
the school is for adults as well as children. 
Here the instructions of the family, the secular 
school, and the pulpit are supplemented by class 
recitation, discussion, and conversation. Here 
take place the activity, the attrition of brain 
and heart, by which truth is made clearer to the 
understanding, and gains a firm hold upon the 
affections. And this is indispensable to the 
highest form of Christian life. 

The pulpit persuades. It also fosters the 
divine life by the frequent reiteration of 
the prominent doctrines of Scripture by 
its expositions, arguments, and illustrations. 
But the Church has something to do beyond 
the persuasion and lecture-teaching of the pul- 



The Church School. 47 

pit. This additional work has been admirably 
stated by the Rev. Augustus William Hare, of 
England, one of the authors of " Guesses at 
Truth." In a sermon on " Grace and peace be 
multiplied unto you through the knowledge of 
God and of Jesus our Lord," he says, " Oin 
forefathers carried on the education of the poor 
by frequent and diligent catechising ; that is, 
by questioning them over and over about the 
great truths and facts and doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. But now that preaching is looked upon 
as the great thing in every Church, this cate- 
chising or questioning has in many places fallen 
into disuse. To profit by a sermon a man 
must attend to it ; he must hear it thoroughly ; 
he must understand it ; he must think it over 
with himself when he gets home. How few in 
any congregation will go to all this trouble ! 
You come, and sit, and hear, and I hope are 
able in some degree to follow the meaning of 
what I say to you from the pulpit ; yet how far 
is this from the understanding and the knowl- 



48 The Church School. 

edge by which grace and peace are to be multi- 
plied ! But when a person is catechised, when 
he is asked questions, and called on to answer 
them, he must think ; he must brace up his 
mind ; unless he is determined not to learn, he 
can scarce help being taught something. And 
those who want to learn, those who feel a wish 
to improve, and to grow in a knowledge of their 
Lord and Master, what progress must they 
make under such instruction ! When I speak 
thus of catechising, do not think I mean to 
decry preaching. Both are useful in their turns. 
Unless the mind be prepared by catechising, 
preaching loses half its use." 




For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have 
need that one teach you again which be the first principles of 
the oracles of God ; and are become such as have need of 
milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk 
is unskillful in the word of righteousness : for he is a babe. 
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even 
those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to 
discern both good and evil. 

Hebrews v, 12, affordeth us many observations suitable to 
our present busines. As, 1. That God's oracles must be 
man's lessons ; 2. Ministers must teach these, and people 
must learn them ; 3. The oracles of God have some principles 
or fundamentals that all must know that will be saved : 
4. These principles must be first learned ; 5. It may be well 
expected that people thrive in knowledge according to the 
means of teaching which they possess — and if they do not, it 
is their sin ; 6. If any have lived long in the Church under the 
means of knowledge and yet be ignorant of these first principles, 
they have need to be taught them yet, how old soever they 
may be. — Baxter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SCHOOL METHOD DEMANDED. 

Sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and 
asking them questions. — Luke ii, 46. 

r J ^HE Church school is a necessity of Chris- 
tian life. Growth in grace is connected 
with, and is in some measure dependent upon, 
growth in knowledge. Growth in knowledge is 
attained by the observance of intellectual laws. 
These laws are not abrogated by the Gospel, 
but remain in force so long as man is a thinking 
being. 

In the acquisition of knowledge and in the 
development of mental power there must be 
more than simple reception and acceptation of 
statements by another. Telling a thing to a pupil 
comes far short of teaching. Simple hearing of 
the thing told, so as to know it, comes far short 



52 The Church School. 

of true study. There must be effort on the part 
of the pupil. He must think. The teacher must 
provoke his thought, must set him at work in 
a way that will cause him to think after the 
teacher has withdrawn from his presence. 

This necessity of thinking and of growth 
imposes upon the teacher and the pupil the 
necessity of question and answer — the echoing 
back from one to another — the purposed 
" putting " of a subject to a student that 
compels him to add a thought or make and 
report a discovery of his own concerning that 
subject. 

We may call the method of teaching what 
we please — " discussion, " "disputation," "con- 
versation," " question and answer," " interlocu- 
tory discourse," or " catechization " — but the 
thing itself we must have in order to the 
attainment of Christian knowledge. It is a 
method which obtains universally in the secular 
department of education. There can be no 
thorough teaching without it. 



The Church School. 53 

Preaching is in many places the only method 
of religious training — the only form of the 
Church school which is employed. The lam- 
entable consequences are apparent in the 
superficiality of the people in Bible knowl- 
edge. We may report of too many Christians 
of our day what the pious Baxter wrote con- 
cerning those who attended upon his ministry, 
and yet ' neglected the catechetical methods 
which he so strenuously advocated. He says : 
" I am daily forced to admit how lamentably 
ignorant many of our people are that have 
seemed diligent hearers of me these ten or 
twelve years, while I spoke as plainly as I was 
able to speak. Some know not that each 
person in the Trinity is God ; nor that Christ 
is God and man ; nor that he took his human 
nature into heaven ; nor many the like neces- 
sary principles of our faith. Yea, some that 
come constantly to private meetings are found 
grossly ignorant ; whereas in one hour's famil- 
iar instruction of them in private they seem to 



54 The Church School. 

understand more, and better entertain it, than 
in all their lives before." 

No one in the history of the Christian Church 
has pleaded with abler argument or intenser 
zeal than Richard Baxter for the revival of the 
original, apostolic and Christly system of cate- 
chisation, in order to thorough religious train- 
ing. Two hundred years ago he uttered appeals 
in this behalf which may well be repeated in the 
ears of the saints to-day. We make an extract 
from the preface to his " Reformed Pastor," 
written in 1656, in which he addresses the 
ministers of his county, who, having been 
" awakened to a sense of their duty in the work 
of catechising and private instruction of all in 
their parishes," had convened at Worcester to 
" humble themselves before the Lord for their 
long neglect of so great and necessary a duty," 
and to engage " in earnest prayer to God for 
the pardon of their neglect, and for his special 
assistance in the work that they had under- 
taken, and for the success of it with the people 



The Church School. 55 

whom they were engaged to instruct/' He 
says : " I bless the Lord that I have lived to 
see such a day as this, and to be present at so 
solemn an engagement of so many servants of 
Christ to such a work. I bless the Lord that 
hath honored you of this county to be the 
beginners and awakeners of the nation here- 
unto. It is not a controverted business, where 
the exasperated minds of divided men might 
pick quarrels with us, or malice itself be able to 
invent a national reproach ; nor is it a new 
invention, where envy might charge you as 
innovators, or proud boasters, of any new dis- 
coveries of your own ; or scorn to follow in it 
because you have led the way. No ; it is a 
well-known duty. It is but the more diligent 
and effectual management of the ministerial 
work, and the teaching of our principles, and 
the feeding of babes with milk. You lead in- 
deed, but not in invention of novelty, but the 
restoration of the ancient ministerial work, and 
the self-denying attempt of a duty that few or 



56 The Church School. 

none can contradict. I know that the public 
preaching of the Gospel is the most excellent 
means, because we speak to many at once ; but, 
otherwise, it is usually far more effectual to 
preach it privately to a particular sinner ; for 
the plainest man that is can scarcely speak 
plain enough in public for them to understand ; 
but in private we may much more. In public 
we may not use such homely expressions, or 
repetitions, as their dullness doth require, but 
in private we may. In public our speeches are 
long, and we quite overrun their understand- 
ings and memories, and they are confounded and 
at a loss, and not able to follow us, and one 
thing drives out another, so that they know not 
what we said ; but in private we can take our 
work gradathn y and take our hearers with us as 
we go ; and by questions and their answers can 
see how far they go with us, and what we have 
next to do. In public, by length and speaking 
alone, we lose their attention ; but when they 
are interlocutors, we can easily cause them to 



The Church School. 57 

attend. Besides that, we can, as we above said, 
better answer the objections, and engage them 
by promises before we leave them, which in 
public we cannot do. I conclude, therefore, 
that public preaching will not be sufficient ; for 
though it may be an effectual means to convert 
many, yet not so many as experience and God's 
appointment of further means may assure us. 
You may long study and preach to little pur- 
pose if you neglect this duty." 

The question is not between preaching 
and catechisation, as to which is the divine 
ordinance. We accept and plead for both as 
necessary methods of winning, and then of 
training, souls for Christ. As good Thomas 
Fuller, in 1661, said of the " Faithful Minister/' 
" He doth not clash God's ordinances together about 
precedence — not making odious comparisons be- 
twixt prayer and preaching, preaching and cate- 
chising, public prayer and private, premeditate 
and extempore. When, at the taking of New 
Carthage, in Spain, two soldiers contended 



58 The Church School. 

about the mural crown, due to him who first 
climbed the walls, so that the whole army was 
thereupon in danger of division, Scipio, the gen- 
eral, said he knew that they both got up the 
wall together, and so gave the scaling crown to 
them both. Thus our minister compounds all 
controversies betwixt God's ordinances by prais- 
ing them all, practicing them all, and thanking 
God for them all." 

Referring to catechising, George Herbert in 
the " Country Parson " says : " This practice 
exceeds even sermons in teaching ; but there 
are two things in sermons, the one informing, 
the other inflaming ; as sermons come short of 
questions in the one, so they far exceed them in 
the other." "Although we know," says Trapp, 
" that which we ask of others as well as they do, 
yet good speeches will draw us to know it better 
by giving occasion to speak more of it, where- 
with the Spirit works more effectually and 
imprints it deeper, so that it shall be a more 
rooted knowledge than before." 



The Church School. 59 

Says Matthew Henry : " We sharpen ourselves 
by quickening others, and improve our knowl- 
edge by communicating it for their edification. " 

" The catechetical mode," says Bridges in 
his i4 Christian Ministry," " is decidedly the 
most effective to maintain attention, elicit intel- 
ligence, convey information, and, most of all, to 
apply the instructions to the heart." 

The biographer of Archbishop Usher says : 
" He found catechising an excellent way to build 
up souls in the most holy faith; and that none 
were more sound and serious Christians than 
those who were well instructed in these funda- 
mental principles. This was the way Reforma- 
tion was advanced in Europe, and Christianity 
in the primitive days ; and this will be found 
the principal way to keep them alive, to main- 
tain their vigor and flourish. The first Refor- 
mers from the Popish defection labored abun- 
dantly in this, and saw and rejoiced in the great 
success thereof. It is affirmed by Egesippus in 
his Ecclesiastical History, " That by virtue of 



60 The Church School. 

catechising there were few nations in the 
world (I think he says none) but what had re- 
ceived an alteration in their heathenish religion 
within forty years after the Passion of Christ. 
And I have read it as an usual complaint of 
some Jesuits, that they found there was but 
little hope of bringing back to the Romish 
Church, or of unsettling or discomposing, such 
Reformed Churches as were constant and seri- 
ous in the use of catechising." 

The necessity of the school method, thus ac- 
knowledged, we are not surprised to find Bax- 
ter, Usher, and other divines of a former evan- 
gelical and fervent age, recommending measures 
of training, in substance the very same as those 
that we now enjoy. The form of the service is 
the outgrowth of the thought and life and genius 
of the Gospel. Sabbath, or properly Church, 
schools are necessities of a vigorous religious 
condition. Hear Baxter counsel the pastors of 
his time concerning the advices to be given 
heads of families : 



The Church School. 61 

" Direct them how to spend the Lord's day ; 
how to dispatch their worldly businesses, so as 
to prevent incumbrances and distractions ; and 
when they have been at the assembly, how to 
spend their time in their families. The life of 
religion lieth much on this, because poor people 
have no other free considerable time ; and there- 
fore if they lose this they lose all, and will re- 
main ignorant and brutish. Especially persuade 
them to these two things: If they cannot repeat 
tJie sermon, or otherwise spend the time profitably 
at home, that they take their family with them, 
and go to some godly neighbor that spends it bet- 
ter, that, by joining with them, they may have 
the better help. That the master of the family 
will every Lord's day, at night, cause all his 
family to repeat the Catechism to him, and give 
him some account of what they have learned 
in public that day." 

This, then, is the very necessity of Christianity. 
The Churches of this age in which the school 
and its distinctive methods prevail are the most 



62 The Church School. 

vigorous and successful. We have found the 
evangelical forces of the English Reformation 
struggling after the same method. We shall 
find that they obtained in the early ages of the 
Church, in the days of the apostles, and in the 
days of Christ. 




There were four sorts of teachers and teaching of the law 
among the Jews : i. In every city and town there was a school 
where children were taught to read the law ; and if there 
were any town where there was not such a school, the men of 
the place stood excommunicate till such a one was erected. 
2. There were the public preachers and teachers of the law 
in their synagogues, most commonly the fixed and settled 
ministers and a?igeli ccclesicv, and sometimes learned men that 
came in occasionally. 3. There were those that had their 
midrashoth) or kept " divinity schools," in which they ex- 
pounded the law to their scholars or disciples, of which there 
is exceeding frequent mention among the Jewish writers, 
especially of the schools of Hillel and Shammai. Such a 
divinity professor was Gamaliel. 4. And, lastly, the whole 
Sanhedrin in its session was as the great school of the nation, 
as well as the great judicatory ; for it set the sense of the law, 
especially in matters practical, and expounded Moses with 
such authority that their gloss and determination was an ipse 
dixit — a positive exposition and rule, that might not be 
questioned or gainsaid. — Lightfoot. 

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people ; 
for he was above all the people ; and when he opened it, all 
the people stood up : and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great 
God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lift- 
ing up their hands : and they bowed their heads, and wor- 
shiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also 
Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, 
Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiab, 
and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law : 
and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book 
in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused 
them to understand the reading. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EARLIER AGES. 

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to 
virtue, knowledge. — 2 Peter i, 5. 

T F the principles we have announced be cor- 
rect, we may expect to find in the primitive 
Church something corresponding to the insti- 
tution we have described. That it should be 
in exact resemblance to the school of our times 
is not necessary to establish their identity. 
In many respects the other religious services 
of the first and nineteenth centuries widely 
differ. 

No divinely authorized mode of government 
or worship is laid down in the New Testament. 
The early Christians probably followed the 
forms of the Jewish synagogue, to which they 

had always been accustomed, with such modi- 

5 



66 The Church School. 

fications as the example of Jesus and the 
conditions and social characteristics of their 
community demanded. Love for the Master, 
familiarity with his simple ways, fellowship in 
his sorrow, and an eager looking for his second 
coming, must have given to the religious wor- 
ship of these Christians a beautiful simplicity 
and spontaneity. Their remembrance of " the 
words of the Lord Jesus," daily recalled by the 
oral testimony of those who were eye-witnesses 
of his life and inspired reporters of his teach- 
ings ; the new significance of the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures ; their faith in the word as an 
instrument of salvation — all these combined to 
give a deep interest to the constant study and 
practical application of the truth. It is simply 
impossible to suppose that in those days of 
vivid experience and intense activity the serv- 
ices of Christians were limited to the formal 
modes of our modern Churches. We learn 
that "they continued steadfastly in the apostles' 
doctrine," the " word of Christ dwelt in them 



The Church School. 67 

richly," and in all wisdom they taught and 
admonished one another. Several facts aid 
us in answering the question, How did the 
primitive Christians thus teach and edify each 
other ? 

They were undoubtedly guided by their Mas- 
ter's example, for they remained in the world to 
fulfill his commission : " Make disciples, baptize, 
instruct." Jesus w r as pre-eminently " the Great 
Teacher." He taught wisely, lovingly, authori- 
tatively, illustratively, patiently, effectively. He 
abounded in questions. He quickened his list- 
less auditors into a questioning mood them- 
selves, and then by divine art threw back their 
own questions upon themselves to find unex- 
pected, irresistible answers in themselves. He 
used nature. Painter nor poet ever used it so 
felicitously and worthily. He used the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures in his prayers and conversa- 
tions and sermons, holding up in new lights the 
old gems until they glittered like freshly cut 
diamonds. His life and ministry represented 



68 The Church School. 

the Church itself in the world — publishing 
salvation, proclaiming new truths, persuading 
men to accept them, and wisely training the 
men thus won in experience and service. His 
methods were rather those of the modern school 
than of the modern pulpit. By questions, con- 
versations, and illustrations, he excited the 
minds of his disciples to self-activity. His 
longest addresses were frequently in reply to 
some inquiry which his own teachings had 
awakened. His "What is written in the law?" 
" How readest thou ? " " Understandest thou 
this ? " " What reason ye in your hearts ? " 
" Have ye not read what David did ? " " Is it 
lawful on the Sabbath days to do good ? " all 
these are after the manner of the teacher, who 
awakens and draws out the mind of the pupil. 
And even after his public addresses or sermons, 
in which he spake the word to the people " as 
they were able to hear it," " when they were 
alone, he expounded all things to his disciples." 
Familiar with his words and modes, the early 



The Church School. 69 

disciples went forth to "preach and to teach in 
his name." * 

The early Church undoubtedly followed very 
closely the methods of the synagogue.^ There 
the word of God was not only read, but ex- 
pounded^ and this in addition to the regular 
discourse or sermon. Vitringa, in referring to 

* Doth the number we speak to make it preaching, or doth 
interlocution make it none ? Surely a man may as truly 
preach to one as to a thousand ; and, as is aforesaid, if you 
search, you will find that most of the Gospel preaching in 
those days was by conference, or serious speeches to people 
occasionally, and frequently interlocutory; and that with one, 
two, or more, as opportunity served. Thus Christ himself did 
most commonly preach. — Baxter. 

+ Very few particulars are given of the regulations estab- 
lished, of the appointment of the several orders of ministers, 
of the Divine service celebrated, or, in short, of any of the 
details of matters pertaining to a Christian Church. One 
reason for this, probably, was that a Jewish synagogue, or a 
collection of synagogues in the same neighborhood, became at 
cnce a Christian Church as soon as the worshipers, or a con- 
siderable portion of them, had embraced the Gospel, and had 
separated themselves from unbelievers. They had only to 
make such additions to their public service, and such altera- 
tions, as were required by their reception of the Gospel, leav- 
ing every thing else as it was. — Archbishop Wiiately. 



yo The Church School. 

this point, says : " There was first read a por- 
tion of the law, which was explained by a 
running commentary ; so that the discourses 
in the ancient synagogues were not at all 
similar to the sermons of the present day, but 
were rather exegeses and paraphrases of what 
was either remarkable or obscure in the portion 
read. But besides the running commentary or 
paraphrase, there was frequently a discourse 
(analogous to our sermon) after the usual service 
of the synagogue." But this was not all, for 
either in the synagogue proper, or in an ad- 
joining room, after the regular service, discus- 
sions and more thorough investigations of the 
truth were carried on. To these " disputations " 
reference is frequently made in the New Testa- 
ment. " Then there arose certain of the syna- 
gogue, which is called the synagogue of the 
Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, 
and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing 
with Stephen. And they were not able to 
resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he 



The Church School. 71 

spake." " But Saul increased the more in 
strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt 
at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ." 
"And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians : but 
they went about to slay him. ,, At Ephesus he 
"went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for 
the space of three months, disputing and per- 
suading the things concerning the kingdom of 
God." * All Jews were admitted to these con- 
versations, and all allowed to ask questions. 
The reading and preaching of the synagogue 
were followed by teaching and searching the 
Word. Kitto says : 

" In the Jerusalem Talmud, a tradition is 
alleged that there had been at Jerusalem four 
hundred and sixty synagogues, each of which 
contained an apartment for the reading of the 
law, and another for the meeting of men for 

♦"Disputing and persuading" — diaAeynjuevog kg! ireldov. 
" Holding conversations with them in order to persuade them 
of the truth of the doctrine of Christ." — Clarke. 



J2 The Church School. 

inquiry, deep research, and instruction. Such 
a meeting-hall is called by the Talmudists 
ts-nfe W, that is, an apartment where lectures 
were given or conversations held on various 
subjects of inquiry. There were three of these 
meeting-places in the temple, and in all of 
them it was the custom for the students to sit 
on the floor, while the teachers occupied raised 
seats ; hence Paul describes himself as having, 
when a student, 'sat at the feet of Gamaliel/ 
Acts xxii, 3. There are many hints in the 
Talmud which throw light upon the manner of 
proceeding in these assemblies. Thus a stu- 
dent asked Gamaliel whether the evening prayer 
was obligatory by the law or not. He answered 
in the affirmative, on which the student in- 
formed him that R. Joshua had told him that it 
was not obligatory. i Well,' said Gamaliel, 
' when he appears to-morrow in the assembly, 
step forward and ask him the question again/ 
He did so, and the expected answer raised a 
discussion, a full account of which is given. 



The Church School. 73 

The meeting-places of the wise stood mostly in 
connection with the synagogues ; and the wise 
or learned men usually met soon after divine 
worship and reading were over in the upper 
apartment of the synagogues, in order to discuss 
those matters which required more research 
and inquiry. The pupils or students in those 
assemblies were not mere boys coming to be 
instructed in the rudiments of knowledge, but 
men or youths of more or less advanced edu- 
cation, who came thither either to profit by 
listening to the learned discussions, or to par- 
ticipate in them themselves. These meetings 
were public, admitting any one though not a 
member, and even allowing him to propose 
questions. These assemblies and meetings were 
still in existence in the time of Christ and his 
apostles." 

In the light of all the facts we understand 
the allusions of the apostle to the customs of 
the early Christians. They met to sing and 
pray and hear the truth. But they also con- 



74 The Church School. 

versed as in the days of Malachi when " they 
that feared the Lord spake often one to another ; 
and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a 
book of remembrance was written before him 
for them that feared the Lord, and that thought 
upon his name." Thus did the early saints 
edify each other. 

This also explains the counsels of the apos- 
tle in i Cor. xiv, 26-33, where he guards this lib- 
erty of the Church against abuse. The prophecy 
of Joel had been fulfilled, (ii, 28, 29,) and even 
upon " servants" and " handmaids " the Spirit 
had been poured out. Paul w r arned against ex- 
travagance, and condemned the noisy, unedify- 
ing, unsatisfactory rhapsodizing of some Corin- 
thian Christians. There were in the first cen- 
tury (as there are in the nineteenth) disciples 
who had " a zeal of God, but not according 
to knowledge." 

The high estimate placed upon the study of 
the Word by Christ, the apostles, and the Chris- 
tian Fathers, must have produced its effect 



The Church School. 75 

upon the early Church. In the days of Moses 
the instruction of youth by their parents in the 
law of God had been commanded. This practice 
is beautifully illustrated in the case of Timothy, 
to whom Paul refers in his second Epistle, (i, 5 ; 
iii, 15.) In the Mislina it is written, " At five 
years of age let children begin the Scripture ; at 
ten the Mishna, and at thirteen let them be 
subjects of the law." Schools were organ- 
ized for the purpose of training Jewish youth. 
Even the day-schools of Judaism were Bible- 
schools. Dr. Wordsworth, referring to Jesus in 
the temple at twelve years of age, says : " Our 
blessed Lord submitted to be catecliised, ac- 
cording to the order and usage of the Jewish 
Church. Our Lord . . . was a Hebrew cate- 
chumen. The child Jesus submitting to be 
catechized by the authorized teachers of God's 
law in God's house is thus an example to all 
Christian children, and teaches them to come 
and be catechised by the ministers of his 
Church in the house of God. He also thus 



?6 The Church School. 

teaches Christian parents to send their chil- 
dren to be catechised by the appointed teachers 
of the Christian law. And he declares the 
great importance of catechising in the Christian 
Church. And the Holy Spirit of God, by select- 
ing this incident of Christ's childhood for per- 
petual commemoration in the Gospel, shows the 
great importance of the practical and doctrinal 
inference to be derived from it." 

Thus Dr. Howson refers to the childhood of 
St. Paul : " His religious knowledge, as his years 
advanced, was obtained from hearing the law 
read in the synagogue, from listening to the 
arguments and discussions of learned doctors, 
and from that habit of questioning and answer- 
ing which was permitted even to the children 
among the Jews." * 

* " As to the questioning, great liberty was allowed to audit- 
ors and students in this respect — the system of instruction 
being, to a certain extent, interrogative, and students being 
encouraged to propose their doubts and difficulties, and to put 
any questions which the thirst of knowledge suggested, to 
those supposed to be able, from their position and attain- 
ments, to afford an authoritative solution." — Kitto. 



The Church School. yj 

This precedent was not forgotten by the early 
disciples. Dr. Mosheim, in his " Ecclesiastical 
History," (first century,) says that " Christians 
took all possible care to accustom their children 
to the study of the Scriptures, and to instruct 
them in the doctrines of their holy religion ; 
and schools were every-where erected for this 
purpose, even from the commencement of the 
Christian Church.'' 

" Ansgarius, the chief apostle of the north- 
ern nations, not only preached the Gospel to 
these barbarians, but established schools for 
the instruction of youth in religion and let- 
ters." — Home. 

" St. John founded the catechetical school of 
Ephesus, St. Mark that of Alexandria, and Poly- 
carp that of Smyrna. Here the seeds of the 
Gospel were first sown in the young and ductile 
mind, before the propensities of more mature 
age had obstructed their growth. The difficul- 
ties which might have accompanied instruction 
merely private were lessened, both to the 



yS The Church School, 

teachers and their disciples ; and the experience 
of succeeding ages has only served to confirm 
the consummate wisdom and utility of these 
apostolical establishments, by displaying more 
fully the advantages of early piety and religious 
education." — -Rett's Bampion Lectures. 

" We must not confound the schools designed 
only for children with the gymnasia, or acade- 
mies of the ancient Christians, erected in several 
large cities, in which persons of riper years, 
especially such as aspired to be public teachers, 
were instructed in the different branches, both 
of human learning and of sacred erudition. We 
may, undoubtedly, attribute to the apostles 
themselves, and their injunctions to their disci- 
ples, the excellent establishments in which the 
youth destined to the holy ministry received an 
education suitable to the solemn office they were 
about to undertake." (2 Tim. ii, 2.) — MosJieim. 

When Aquila and Priscilla opened a school 
in their own house for Apollos, to teach him 
how to preach ' the way of God more per- 



The Church School. 79 

fectly,' what did they really do for that young 
minister but that which Sunday school teachers 
are doing every week in the year, and must do 
if we are to maintain apostolic preaching among 
us ? They brought their knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures, their experience of the Gospel, to aid this 
promising minister of Christ in the important 
work which he had undertaken." — Dr. Tyng. 

This high appreciation of the word, its use 
in the family, the school, the synagogue, and 
the " assembly of the wise," accounts for the 
perfect familiarity with it which the apostles 
evince in their recorded discourses. One is 
struck with this in Peter's sermon on the day 
of Pentecost, in Stephen's final address, and in 
Paul's speech at Antioch. 

In view of all these facts we cannot suppose 
that the early Christians were satisfied with 
merely listening to discourses on the truths of 
Christianity. The new meanings of the Old 
Testament which the life and teachings of Christ 
opened to their understanding, their remem- 



8o The Church School. 

brance of the Lord's precious words, the abun- 
dant outpouring of the Spirit, their familiarity 
with the exegetical and conversational methods 
of the schools and " assemblies," warrant us in 
concluding that they, as " disciples," met not 
only to pray, and to commemorate in the 
" supper" the passion of our Lord, but by 
prophesyings and teachings to insure " stead- 
fastness in the apostles' doctrine." 

This is further apparent from the emphasis 
placed upon the Holy Scriptures by Luke and 
the apostles. The Bereans were especially com- 
mended as " noble," inasmuch as "they received 
the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
the Scriptures daily, whether those things were 
so." Paul advises the Christian warrior to be 
girt about the loins with truth, and to take the 
" sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." 

To the elders of the Ephesian Church whom 
he met at Miletus the apostle says, "And now, 
brethren, I commend you to God, and to the 
word of his grace, which is able to build you up, 



The Church School. 8i 

and to give you an inheritance among all them 
which are sanctified." Had not Paul heard of 
the Master's prayer: " Sanctify them through 
thy truth ; thy word is truth?" To Timothy 
he writes : " All Scripture is given by inspira- 
tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
eousness : that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 

The direction given to the Church at Colosse 
is very explicit. No modern Church school can 
desire a more perfect charter. On this passage 
the Rev. Dr. Adam Clarke says : " I believe the 
apostle means that the Colossians should be 
well instructed in the doctrine of Christ ; that 
it should be their constant study; that it should 
be frequently preached, explained, and enforced 
among them ; and that all the wisdom com- 
prised in it should be well understood. . . . 
Through bad pointing this verse is not very in- 
telligible ; the several members of it should be 

distinguished thus : ' Let the doctrine of Christ 

G 



82 The Church School. 

dwell richly among you ; teaching and admon- 
ishing each other in all wisdom ; singing with 
grace in your hearts unto the Lord, in psalms 
and hymns and spiritual songs.' This arrange- 
ment the original will not only bear, but it 
absolutely requires it, and is not sense without 
it." What a description of a thinking, growing, 
spiritual Church ! Did they only hear preach- 
ing once or twice a week ? In the social meet- 
ings was there no study and teaching of the 
"doctrine," "wisdom," word of God? 

We have already referred to the Christians 
of the age immediately succeeding that of the 
apostles, and the catechetical schools which 
became so great a power in the third century. 
The literary "remains" of that remote age are 
few, and yet we find the traces of an intense 
devotion to the word of God. The people were 
Bible students. They were true successors of 
the Bereans visited by Paul. So far from justi- 
fying the course of Rome with reference to the 
word of God, the early bishops and fathers of 



The Church School. 83 

the Church insisted upon the careful and inde- 
pendent study of it. 

Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, in Cappaclocia, con- 
temporary with Epiphanius, says " that be- 
lievers instructed in the Scriptures ought to 
examine what is said by their teachers, and to 
embrace what is agreeable to the Scriptures, 
and to reject what is otherwise." 

" I trust," said Polycarp to the Church, " that 
ye are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures." 

Said Origen : " That our religion teaches us 
to seek after wisdom shall be shown, both out 
of the ancient Jewish Scriptures, which we also 
use, and out of those written since Jesus, which 
are believed in the Churches to be divine." 

Lactantius says " that every age and order 
among the Christians were Christian philoso- 
phers, yea, that the very virgins and maids as 
they sat at their work in wool were wont to 
speak of God's word." Julian the Apostate 
upbraided the Christians that their women were 
"meddlers with the Scriptures." Dr. Lardner 



84 The Church School. 

observes concerning the writings of Lactantius, 
(A. D. 300,) that " He seems to show that the 
Christians of his time w T ere so habituated to 
the language of Scripture that it was not easy 
for them to avoid the use of it whenever they 
discoursed upon things of a religious nature." 
— Home. 

In defense of the early Church the distin- 
guished Bingham says : " It is observable that 
no Church anciently denied any order of Chris- 
tians the use of the Holy Scriptures in the vul- 
gar tongue, since even the catechumens them- 
selves, who were but an imperfect sort of 
Christians, were exhorted and commanded to 
read the canonical books in all churches, and 
the apocryphal books in some churches, for 
moral instruction. Nay, if we may believe 
Bede, they were obliged to get some of the 
Holy Scriptures by heart, as a part of their ex- 
ercise and discipline, before they were baptized. 
For he commends it as a laudable custom in the 
ancient Church that such as were to be cate- 



The Church School. 85 

chised and baptized were taught the beginnings 
of the four Gospels, and the intent and order 
of them, at the time when the ceremony of 
opening their ears was solemnly used, that they 
might know and remember what and how many 
those books were from whence they were to be 
instructed in the true faith. So far were they 
from locking up the Scriptures from any order 
of men in an unknown tongue that they 
thought them useful and instructive." 

The same eminent Christian archaeologist 
gives the following interesting facts concerning 
the catechumens, and also concerning the cus- 
toms of the early Church in its public services : 

" The author of the Apostolical Constitutions 
prescribes these several heads of instruction : 
Let the catechumen be taught before baptism 
the knowledge of the Father unbegotten, the 
knowledge of his only begotten Son, and Holy 
Spirit ; let him learn the order of the world's 
creation, and series of Divine providence, and 
the different sorts of legislation ; let him be 



86 The Church School. 

taught why the world, and man, the citizen of 
the world, were made ; let him be instructed 
about his own nature, to understand for what 
end he himself was made ; let him be informed 
how God punished the wicked with water and 
fire, and crowned his saints with glory in every 
generation, namely, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, 
Abraham and his posterity, Melchizedek, Job, 
Moses, Joshua, Caleb, and Phineas the priest, 
and the saints of every age. Let him also be 
taught how the providence of God never for- 
sook mankind, but called them at sundry times 
from error and vanity to the knowledge of the 
truth, reducing them from slavery and impiety to 
liberty and godliness, and from iniquity to right- 
eousness. He must also learn the doctrine of 
Christ's incarnation, his passion, his resurrec- 
tion and assumption, and what it is to renounce 
the devil and enter into covenant with Christ.* 

* What is thought of this course of training for unbaptized 
subjects of the Church ? How would a fully initiated modern 
Christian stand an examination on these points? 



The Church School. 87 

" It was a peculiar custom in the African 
Church, when the preacher chanced to cite 
some remarkable text of Scripture in the middle 
of his sermon, for the people to join with him 
in repeating the close of it. St. Austin takes 
notice of this in one of his sermons, where, 
having begun those words of St. Paul, ' The 
end of the commandment is — ' before he would 
proceed any further he called to the people to 
repeat the remainder of the verse with him, 
upon which they all cried out immediately, 
1 Charity out of a pure heart.' By which, he 
says, they showed that they had not been un- 
profitable hearers. And this, no doubt, was 
done to encourage the people to hear and read 
and remember the Scriptures, that they might 
be able upon occasion to repeat such useful por- 
tions of them, having their liberty not only to 
hear, but to read and repeat them in their 
mother-tongue. 

" There is one thing more must be taken 
notice of with relation to the hearers, because 



88 The Church School. 

it expressed a great deal of zeal and diligence 
in their attention : which is, that many of them 
learned the art of notaries, that they might be 
able to take down in writing the sermons of 
famous preachers word for word as they deliv- 
ered them. St. Austin makes the same obser- 
vation concerning his own sermons upon the 
Psalms : that it pleased the brethren not only 
to receive them with their ears and heart, but 
with their pens likewise ; so that he was to 
have regard not only to his auditors, but his 
readers also. 

The appointment of teachers, referred to in the 
Epistles, recognizes the school element of the 
Church : "Now ye are the body of Christ, and 
members in particular ; and God hath set some 
in the Church, first apostles, secondarily proph- 
ets, thirdly teachers. . . . And he gave some, 
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- 
gelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the 
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the min- 
istry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. . . . 



The Church School. 89 

Having then gifts differing according to the grace 
that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us 
prophesy according to the proportion of faith ; 
or ministry, let us wait on our ministering ; or 
he that teacheth, on teaching ; or he that ex- 
horteth, on exhortation." All these officers are 
given " for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
body of Christ ; till we all come in the unity of 
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
the stature of the fullness of Christ." Paul con- 
templates the growth of the believers through 
the truth, every joint supplying somewhat, every 
part working effectually, making ''increase of 
the body unto the edifying of itself in love." 
He says, " The body is not one member but 
many. Now ye are the body of Christ and 
members in particular. And God hath set 
some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily 
prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles ; 
then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diver- 



90 The Church School. 

sities of tongues." These " prophets " spake 
unto men u to edification and exhortation and 
comfort." The " evangelists," according to 
Olshausen, "journeying about, labored for the 
wider extension of the Gospel." So the " teach- 
ers," according to Clarke, (Rom. xii, 7,) "were 
persons whose office it was to instruct others, 
whether by catechising, or simply explaining 
the grand truths of Christianity." 

Dr. Macknight, on Rom. xii, 7, 8, says : " The 
teacher, I suppose, addresses the understanding 
of his hearers, giving them instruction in the 
doctrines of the Gospel, perhaps in the way of 
question and answer, especially when the first 
principles were to be taught." " If our gift be 
prophecy, etc., or if our gifts fit us for the stated 
ministry of the word, let us be diligent in preach- 
ing, not disheartened by dangers ; or if one's 
gifts fit him for teaching the ignorant, let him 
be diligent in teaching such." 

"A pastor was a teacher, although every teach- 
er might not be a pastor, but in many cases be 



The Church School. 91 

confined to the office of subordinate instruction, 
whether as an expounder of doctrine, a cate- 
chist, or even a more private instructor of those 
who as yet were unacquainted with the first 
principles of the Gospel of Christ." — Dr. A. 
Stevens. 

Benson on Rom. xii, 8, says : " ' He that teaeJi- 
eth* the ignorant; who is appointed to instruct 
the catechumens and to fit them for the com- 
munion of the Church." And, on Eph. iv, 1 1 : 
" It is probable the peculiar office of those 
here termed teachers, as distinguished from 
those called pastors, was to instruct the young 
and ignorant in the first principles of the Chris- 
tian religion. And they likewise were doubt- 
less fitted for their work by such gifts as were 
necessary to the right discharging thereof." 

" No system can be made to accord with this 
passage, [Eph. iv, 16,] any more than with the 
general spirit of the New Testament, wherein 
the pulpit is the sole provision for instruction, 
admonition, and exhortation ; the great bulk of 



92 The Church School. 

the members of the Church being merely recip- 
ients, each living a stranger to the spiritual 
concerns of the others, and no ' effectual work- 
ing ' of every joint and every part for mutual 
strengthening being looked for. It is not enough 
that arrangements to promote mutual edification 
be permitted, at the discretion of individual 
pastors or officers ; means of grace wherein 
fellow-Christians shall on set purpose have 
'fellowship' one with another, 'speak often 
one to another, exhort one another, confess 
their faults one to another,' and ' pray one for 
another,' shall teach and i admonish one an- 
other in all wisdom,' are not dispensable ap- 
pendages, but of the essence of a Church of 
Christ." — Rev. William Arthur. 

" We read in the eighth book of the ' Apos- 
tolical Constitution,' ' Let him who teaches, if 
he be a layman, be versed in the Word.' . . . 
It remains an established fact that all believers 
had the right to teach in public worship." — 
PressensL 



The Church School. 93 

Thus we see that the Early Church of Christ 
was a school. It was designed, like the syna- 
gogues and " assemblies " of the Jews, for wor- 
ship and for the thorough investigation of the 
Holy Scriptures ; with what increase of oppor- 
tunity and illumination we have already seen. 
Its members were to " teach " and " edify" each 
other. The " word of Christ was to dwell 
richly" among them. They were to grow in 
" knowledge " as well as in " grace," to " add to 
faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge ;" to be 
"strong," and "overcome the wicked one," 
through the " word of God abiding in them." 
In order to this there were " diversities of 
gifts," and "differences of administrations," but 
the same Lord ; and in the Church " the mani- 
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to 
profit withal." "All these worketh that one 
and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man 
severally as he will. For as the body is one, 
and hath many members, and all the members 
of that one body, being many, are one body ; so 



94 The Church School. 

also in Christ." The excellent William Arthur 
in speaking of the clivers gifts of the Spirit, 
says, " Spiritual office and spiritual gifts vary 
greatly in degree, honor, and authority, and he 
who has the less ought to reverence him who 
has the greater, remembering who it is that 
dispenses them ; but the greater should never 
attempt to extinguish the less, and to reduce 
the exercise of spiritual gifts within the limits 
of the public and ordained ministry. To do so 
is to depart from spiritual Christianity." We 
have little doubt that the " teachers " referred 
to by the apostle were a class of persons who 
gave special attention to this department of 
instruction, and aided the regular ministry in 
the edification of the Church. They were lay- 
men, and endowed with the gift of the Holy 
Ghost. 

We add a quotation or two to enforce the 
doctrine already so strongly sustained by the 
theory and example of the primitive Church. 

" The work is likely to go poorly on if there 



The Church School. 95 

be no hands employed in it but the ministers. 
God giveth not any of his gifts to be buried, but 
for common use. By a prudent improvement 
of the gifts of the more able Christians, we may 
receive much help by them, and prevent their 
abuse." — Baxter. 

" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and the 
Spirit of God never surrenders its sovereign 
freeness. The advocates of the hierarchy do not 
deny that the miraculous gifts were bestowed 
on the Christians generally ; but they assert, 
on behalf of the ecclesiastics, a monopoly of 
the gift of teaching, the use of which must, they 
maintain, be regulated by official and sovereign 
authority, or doctrinal anarchy will inevitably 
follow. This distinction, however, is wholly 
arbitrary. The synagogue already acknowl- 
edged, under certain limitations, the right of 
every pious Jew to teach." — Pressense. 

The work thus contemplated and performed 
by the early Church — the work of edification 
through the truth, taught in the most 



g6 The Church School. 

thorough and effective way by persons ap- 
pointed for that purpose — remains to be 
carried on, and by similar modes, in the 
Church to-day. We regard the Sunday 
school in its highest form as the divine 
method for reaching this end. 



I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appear- 
ing and his kingdom ; preach the word ; be instant in season, 
out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsufifering 
and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not 
endure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they 
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears ; and they 
shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned 
unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, 
do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. 

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to 
doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was 
given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of 
the presbytery. Meditate upon these things ; give thyself 
wholly to them ; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take 
heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue in them : 
for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that 
hear thee. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PASTOR. 

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me . . . 
putting me into the ministry. — i Tim. i, 12. 

T)AUL unto Timothy, a chief and beloved 
Pastor : " These things write I unto thee 
. . . that thou mayest know how thou oughtest 
to behave thyself in the house of God, which is 
the Church of the living God, the pillar and 
ground of the truth." The Church of God, as 
" the pillar and ground of the truth," lifts up, 
publishes, protects, and perpetuates the truth. 
It aims to restore our race to a state of per- 
fect harmony with the God of truth ; its chief 
instrumentality is the word of truth ; its 
agent is the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth ; 
its human helpers are preachers and teachers 
of the truth. In the Scriptures it is written, 
(let us not weary of the words) : "And he gave 



ioo The Church School. 

some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for 
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : 
till we all come in the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ." 

The Sunday school in its mission form, as we 
have seen, is the Church preaching the truth 
outside of the regular sanctuary to those whom 
it has not been able to reach from its pulpits ; 
it is the Church folding to Christian hearts in 
personal care, love, and sympathy for more 
effective instruction in truth the little ones who 
have never, at their own homes, known what 
Christian care and tenderness meant ; it is the 
Church seeking disciples of truth for the Mas- 
ter, as did the seventy whom he sent out from 
his presence while he was on earth. These 
mission schools are the outposts, and at the 
same time the recruiting offices of the Church 



The Church School. ioi 

militant. Rather, they are the lower schools 
and academies tributary to the great central 
university by whose authority, and for whose 
advantage, they exist. 

Has the divinely appointed preacher of truth 
and Pastor of the Church any thing to do with 
the Church in this form of its activity ? Where 
are his services more needed ? 

The Sunday school in its Church form is the 
Church drilling the enlisted recruits, or, (to use 
the New Testament figure,) training the disci- 
ples of Christ, old and young, in truth, work 
and character by means of the Holy Scriptures, 
teaching, reproving, correcting, and instructing 
in righteousness, " that the man of God may be 
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works? 
In fact, the Church is itself a school of religion, 
Pastors are its head-teachers, death the limit 
of its term, and heaven the higher department, 
where Christ himself, the great teacher, shall 
lead his disciples by fountains of living truth 
forever. 



102 The Church School, 

Has the divinely appointed preacher of truth 
and Pastor of the Church any thing to do with 
the Church in this mode of its activity? If not, 
what is he for ? 

The question as to how a minister " oicgJit to 
behave" himself in the house of God, which is 
the Church of the living God, the pillar and 
ground of the truth, is, therefore, legitimate and 
important. 

We waive the full discussion of the minister's 
ecclesiastical authority in the Sunday school. 
We have no heart for it. He who lays claim to 
any precedence on account of an ecclesiastical 
prerogative will have too little heart for real 
Sunday school work to render his service there 
very efficient. Official pre-eminence, not tem- 
pered and toned by the spirit of Christian ten- 
derness, equality, and humility, can only excite 
contempt. A puppet king in a puppet panto- 
mime is more dignified than he who plays the 
prelate in the Sunday school because he is Pastor 
and has the right from Churchdom to do it. 



The Church School. 103 

The Sunday school is pre-eminently the field 
for laic labor, and yet the Pastor of the Church 
is Pastor of the school. He has the same ab- 
stract right to guide in all matters that pertain 
to instruction in his Sunday school that he ha? 
in his pulpit ; but, since the larger part of the 
labor performed in the school is, and must of 
necessity be, performed by the laity, it behooves 
the Pastor to divide with his assistants an au- 
thority which he acquires originally by virtue 
of his office as teacher, and to a share in which 
they become entitled by entering upon that 
oTice and faithfully performing their measure 
of its duties. 

In harmony with this theory of responsibility, 
we assert that the Sunday school can never so 
belong to the laity as to justify it in putting 
an injunction upon the Pastors oversight and 
direction there. His is the original right. The 
laymen become sharers in it by virtue of 
their service, and the Pastor should conserve 
these mutijal rights with prudence, fidelity, and 



104 The Church School. 

delicacy. We do not believe that there- are 
many cases of collision between the Pastor and 
the school. While in a few instances within 
our own sphere of observation, from a false 
theory of the school as an independency, or 
from the personal sensitiveness of a superin- 
tendent, more fond of authority than fitted for 
its exercise, the school and Pastor have seemed 
to move inharmoniously, we believe that in the 
vast majority of cases there is no such difficulty. 
On the contrary, we venture the assertion that 
superintendents generally, for the sake of secur- 
ing more of the Pastor's presence, sympathy, 
and influence, would be glad to find him in- 
fringing a little upon their constitutional pre- 
rogatives. 

Against clerical arrogance, perfunctoriness, 
and practical incompetency, every right-minded 
superintendent must of necessity protest. Such 
protests are rarely entered, because such Pas- 
tors, happily, are but rarely found. 

Let us look at the Pastor in his several 



The Church School. 105 

positions — in the study, in the pulpit, in pastoral 
work, and in the school, itself — and let us ask, 
What are his peculiar duties in reference to the 
Sabbath school, seeing that he does sustain a 
close and intimate relation to it ? 

I. What may the Pastor do in the study in 
behalf of the school or schools connected with his 
Church ? In the midst of theological and liter- 
ary labors, while preparing for the pulpit, while 
devising ways and means for the development 
of his Church, what should he do for the Sun- 
day school ? 

1. He may there daily pray for divine wis- 
dom justly to appreciate the school and judi- 
ciously to direct its affairs. Prayer is the most 
effective of all preparatives for labor. Prayer 
kindles zeal. Prayer sharpens the intellect. 
Prayer secures many a wise suggestion, and 
begets many a practical device. Apathy in 
reference to any department of labor may be 
counteracted by fervent prayer. By prayer our 
Pastors may answer the sophistical argument 



106 The Church School. 

of Satan, couched in that word " inadaptation," 
by which so often he leads us to justify our neg- 
lect of the plainer duties of the pastoral office. 
In his study, amid the mental struggles and 
tensions of his life, he may now and then 
rest in the sweet power of prayer, and plead 
for the teachers of his school, the scholars, and 
their parents. Thus may he indorse before the 
court of heaven the endeavors and pleadings 
of his fellow-laborers. 

2. He may take time to investigate, and fully 
to understand, the true aims, relations, and 
methods of the Sunday school. Said one suc- 
cessful Pastor and able preacher, " I make it a 
point to read up the literature of the Sunday 
school. ,, The weekly and monthly periodicals, 
the reports of conventions and institutes, the 
manuals, essays on special phases of this work, 
etc., etc., contain many practical suggestions 
which, as professional teachers, every minister 
might read with advantage. A very little time 
every week devoted tq thi§ labor would amply 



The Church School. 107 

repay any Pastor even though he did not covet 
the reputation of being a " Sunday school man." 
Ministers who now speak lightly of the Sunday 
school might, after a more thorough examina- 
tion into its philosophy, history, and ecclesias- 
tical relations, be led to a higher appreciation 
of it as a regular and long-established depart- 
ment of Church work. 

3. He may in his study fully acquaint him- 
self with the lessons of the school. He should 
have a voice in the selection of these lessons, 
and every week should carefully and thoroughly 
investigate the passages which are to be used 
on the ensuing Sabbath. In the teachers' meet- 
ing he will then be ready for questions and 
suggestions. In the prayer-meeting he will 
be able to present the leading truth of the 
lesson. In casual conversation his questions, 
allusions, and explanations will excite the in- 
terest of parents, scholars, and teachers in 
Bible study. Such an example would be a stim- 
ulus to the whole Church, and the Pastor's 



108 • The Church School. 

work in his study would bear fruit in the Church 
and the family. 

II. What may the Pastor do in the Pulpit in 
bclialf of his Sunday scJiool? 

i. He may invariably announce the school, 
its place and hour of meeting, and the lesson 
for that day's investigation. By this means the 
attention of the entire Church is called to one 
of its most important departments, and all are 
reminded of its claims upon them. How fre- 
quently is it the case that while evening service, 
prayer-meetings, class-meetings, official meet- 
ings, and even choir meetings, are announced, 
not one word is said in the pulpit concerning 
the Bible school of the Church. 

2. He may occasionally supplement this notice 
by a cordial invitation to the entire congrega- 
tion to attend its sessions. On the lips of some 
ministers we wot of, this invitation would warm 
into an earnest plea. We know men who have 
thus increased the attendance at their schools 
over seventy-five per cent, in a few weeks. They 



The Church School. 109 

regard the school as a part of the Church, the 
Bible as God's medium of grace, and all Church 
members as " disciples " of Christ. Th^y be- 
lieve that a nesflect of Bible study is one of the 
greatest hinderances to spiritual growth, and 
one of the most prevalent "sins of omission" 
in the Church of this age ; so they seek to 
honor God's word, and to promote the growth, 
enrichment, and power of God's people. Such 
convictions make themselves heard on God's 
day in God's house, and the people go home 
to " look up the lesson," and then go to the 
school to " search the Scriptures." Finding 
the service so sweet, and the fellowship of the 
Sunday school room so refreshing, they go again 
and again. 

3. He may frequently, in connection with the 
pulpit " notices," address himself especially to 
the parents and guardians of the children who 
attend his school, explaining its purpose and 
plans, and pleading for such commands and co- 
operation as shall secure the preparation at home 



no The .Church School. 

of every lesson by the scholars. A simple ex- 
planation in the pulpit of the plan of " Home 
Readings" in theBerean Series of Lessons would 
enlist many families in the delightful service 
of Bible reading each morning in the line of 
thought suggested by the lesson for the ensuing 
Sabbath. Many parents forget the claims of 
the Sunday school upon them in this particular. 
A reminder from the pulpit would always have 
a good effect. 

4. He may regularly pray for the school, its 
officers and teachers, in the hearing of the con- 
gregation. The Pastor's plea may warm into 
prayerfulness the teacher's heart, and remind 
parents and pupils who are present of the im- 
. portance and value of the service which the 
school is performing for them. We invariably, 
in our Sabbath morning pulpit prayers, recog- 
nize the class -leaders and Sunday school teach- 
ers of a Methodist Episcopal Church as really 
and equally sub-pastors, the assistants of the 
chief Pastor in his holy and arduous work. 



The Church School. i i i 

5. He may in the course of the year preach 
on several phases of the Sunday school, and this 
without making sermons on the subject as a 
"specialty." Its work is so extensive, its rela- 
tions so manifold, that without incurring the 
charge of " sameness," " repetition," " hobby- 
ism," a minister may often allude to it. 

6. He may occasionally resolve his congrega- 
tion into a school, and his sermons may take 
the form of lectures. The geographical features 
are illustrated by a map. The congregation 
is encouraged to hold Bibles open, and re- 
fer to passages indicated and then expounded 
by the preacher. We have known even the 
blackboard to be used, proposition after proposi- 
tion as established by appropriate texts being 
written out, and then with clearness and power 
applied to a most attentive and interested audi- 
ence. This would not do invariably, perhaps 
not frequently ; and yet we venture that the 
Pastor who dares to do it occasionally will edu- 
cate and delight his people, awaken new zeal in 



112 The Church School. 

scriptural investigations, and not a whit diminish 
the spirituality of his Church. 

7. He may preach upon the subjects which 
are used by the school for weekly lessons ; or at 
least refer to these subjects, illustrate some 
part of his sermon each week by them, and 
thus increase the interest of teachers and schol- 
ars in his discourses. Themes about which we 
have thought closely for a week, we are more 
anxious to hear discussed than any other ; and 
where it is known that the Pastor will have 
something to say on the " lesson for the day," all 
members of the school will be anxious to hear 
him. There is a possibility of great results in 
this plan of uniform lessons through a Church, 
and nothing contributes more fully to its suc- 
cess than the approval and co-operation of the 
pulpit. 

We would not hamper a Pastor by selecting 
subjects for his discourse beforehand, but, asking 
him to assist in the selection of the subjects, we 
beg that he will every Sabbath bring into the 



The Church School. 113 

field of observation (giving it more or less time 
and prominence) the " one bright particular 
star " of truth toward which as a Sunday school 
we for that week direct our special attention. 
By no plan can a preacher more certainly 
secure the eyes and ears of the little people 
in the congregation, and certainly his most 
appreciative hearers will prize discussions 
which may be made available in the investiga- 
tions and instructions of the school where they 
are teachers or adult pupils. 

8. He may preach so that the very young and 
the very dull hearers in his congregation will 
understand something in every sermon. We 
say, " the very young," because the ordinary 
child of from ten to fifteen years of age requires 
no special adaptation of the sermon other than 
that which the ordinary adult may demand. 
We undervalue the capacities of our youthful 
auditors. In our attempts to "come down to 
them" we run no small risk of being ourselves 

brought " down " in their esteem. 

8 



114 The Church School. 

We especially plead for directness and sim- 
plicity in preaching to every body. There are 
opportunities enough through the press, on the 
rostrum, and in the special class, for profound 
discussions of matters beyond the ken and com- 
pass of the masses. In the pulpit we want 
wholesome, practical, doctrinal and experimental 
teaching that every body can understand. We 
may write theological essays like Paul, if called 
to it and qualified for it ; but when we preach, 
let it be as Paul preached before Festus and on 
Mars' Hill, or as Peter preached at Jerusalem, 
or as Jesus perpetually preached in Galilee — in 
a plain, popular, earnest way for the saving of 
souls and for the edification of saints. There 
are subjects enough in the great Book to give 
variety to our sermons, and still keep us within 
the range of our people's thought. The author 
of " Sword and Garment " is responsible for 
the following incident about Dr. Dwight : " A 
young clergyman said to him, ' What is the best 
method of treating very difficult and abstruse 



Tm: Church School. 115 

points in mental philosophy ? ' 'I cannot give 
you any information upon the subject/ replied 
the Doctor, 'I am not familiar with such topics. 
•I leave them for young men/ " If "themes pro- 
found" must claim our attention, let us heed 
Aristotle's good advice to his pupils : " Think 
like the wise ; speak like the common people." 
" Simplicity," says Lord Jeffrey, " is the last 
attainment of progressive literature ; and men 
are very long afraid of being natural for fear 
of being taken as ordinary." 

Let us preach to the people on the people's 
themes, in the people's tongue, for the people's 
salvation. So shall the little ones be held and 
edified, and the blessing of Him be upon us 
who "set a little child in the midst" of his dis- 
ciples that by looking down toward him they 
might be lifted up by the exalting grace of hu- 
mility and simplicity and faith. 

III. From the study and the pulpit we follow 
our Pastor into the social arena, where his power 
as a man is most quickly and immediately felt. 



ii6 The Church School. 

Now he is to illustrate his own sermons. The 
graces he depicts so glowingly in the pulpit are 
to be found or missed by his people in the 
friendly fellowships of his e very-day life. The 
earnestness of his public appeals is to be tested. 
As we have inquired concerning the "study" 
and " pulpit,'' so now, as to this third depart- 
ment, we ask : What may the Pastor do in his 
pastoral or social work in behalf of the 
Sunday school ? 

i. He may keep a list of all his teachers and 
scholars, and become to a considerable extent 
personally acquainted with them. This per- 
sonal acquaintance will give him such access to 
them as no public instructions can secure. The 
list of names may be had for the asking. The 
most unreliable memory may be improved to a 
remarkable degree by the habit of inquiring 
concerning names, recognizing the faces of 
those to whom they belong, and daily practicing 
this identification of persons. It is a little 
thing indeed to be able to name at sight every 



The Church School. 117 

scholar in one's school, but on that little 
thing often hinges a Pastor's permanent influ- 
ence, a child's education, or, more than all, the 
conversion of an immortal soul. 

2. The true Pastor serves as a link between the 
Sunday school and the family, securing mutual 
co-operaticn. His words, dropped incidentally 
at the fireside, convince parents that it is their 
duty to insist upon the children's home prepa- 
ration of the Sunday school lesson. The ques- 
tion of the Pastor leads to a question by the 
parent, and we find Willie and Mary, and all the 
rest, at home conning the text of next Sabbath's 
lesson. Indeed, thev are the more eao;er to do 
this from a casual question asked by the same 
faithful Pastor as he met them that morning on 
their way to school. The Pastor's interest 
touching the children on the street and the 
parents in the parlor works out a good result in 
the open Bible, the memorized text, and the 
recitation, first to each other and then to their 
parents, of next Sunday's lesson. The teacher 



1 1 8 The Church School. 

at first wonders at the change, but soon discov- 
ers that tJie Pastor is abroad. 

3. In another way our good Pastor aids the 
school in these social ministrations. His oft- 
repeated query about Bible study at home and 
at school suggests to the adults in every family 
the possibility, practicability, propriety, and, 
finally, the absolute necessity of regularly at- 
tending the school. They ne\er knew before 
this what a beautiful and profitable and digni- 
fied institution the Sunday school is. To their 
thought it was a place for children cnly, a song- 
singing and flag-flaunting and speech-making 
and story-telling service. Now it is an " assem- 
bly" like the select meetings of the old Jews, 
who convened after the synagogue service was 
over for meditation, conversation, and discussion. 
It is a regular Berean band for Bible research. 
It is the " people's college" for instruction in 
the wonderful truths of this wonderful Book of 
God. When, therefore, the Sunday school su- 
perintendent finds fathers and mothers, deacons, 



The Church School. i 19 

elders, class-leaders, physicians, lawyers, trades- 
men, etc., etc., flocking to the school, first as 
spectators and then as students, lie concludes 
that the Pastor is abroad. 

4. The Pastor may employ the scholars of 
his school as aids in the various philanthropic 
labors which his zeal inspires and his skill de- 
vises. His school, or so much of it as he can 
enlist, constitutes the " Pastor's Band of Help- 
ers." To be a " helper" is the ambition of every 
pupil in that Church. New families are watched. 
From one to five hundred wide-awake eyes are 
on the new houses or the new " movings " into 
town. They emulate each other in making 
early reports to him concerning the new-comers, 
and he is speedily " abroad" again. The "help- 
ers" become his tract distributers. At any 
time he can flood the Church and community 
in less than six hours with a printed tract on 
any given topic, and these, as a reminder of 
something he said in the pulpit last Sabbath, or 
in anticipation of something he proposes to dis- 



120 The Church School. 

cuss next Sabbath, become most valuable aids 
in his pulpit labors. He becomes another Bri- 
areus, and with more than fifty heads and more 
than a hundred hands watches, directs, and de- 
velops his Church. 

5. He may much in the same way, but for 
higher and more delicate services, employ the 
teachers of his school. Their ministry may ex- 
tend into the details of a spiritual guardianship. 
They may visit the afflicted, converse with the 
serious-minded, report especial cases to their 
Pastor, and consult with him in reference to the 
immediate interests of their own pupils. Thus 
he utilizes for the sweetest and divinest ends the 
zeal of his Sunday school teachers, and makes 
them veritable sub-pastors in his Church. 

6. In one other place we find the Pastor at 
work outside of the study, the pulpit, and of 
the school itself. It is where the members of 
his " official board," "session," "vestry," or by 
whatsoever name they may be known, discuss 
the affairs, financial and spiritual, of the Church 



The Church School. 121 

they represent. Here the Pastoi's voice is 
heard in effective protest against the meager 
and miserable financial support the Sunday 
school usually receives from the Church. No 
longer, under his ministry, do little children go 
about begging for pennies to furnish library 
books, curtain windows, carpet floors, etc. The 
school takes its place on the list of legitimate 
objects for Church support, and the moneys 
collected for the whole are distributed among 
Pastor, school, organist, sexton, church repair 
committee, etc. 

Thus one popular ground of objection to the 
Sunday school is removed, and its leaders go 
forward with self-respect to do their noble work 
in the noblest way. Blessed is the Church 
whose affairs are superintended by such a man, 
and thrice blessed the Sunday school that can 
call him " Our Pastor ! " 

IV. In the school its If what shall our Pas- 
tor do ? 

1. Whatever be his specific work there, what- 



122 The Church School. 

ever the theoretical relation which he may sus- 
tain, one thing the true Pastor will invariably 
secure — perfect harmony of feeling between 
himself and the officers of the school. He will 
never come into collision with them as a body, 
and will do his utmost to maintain pleasant 
relations even with those against whose neg- 
ligence or inefficiency he may be compelled to 
protest. 

2. He will recognize the superintendent's 
authority in the school. Ex officio the Pastor 
is, in one sense, superintendent. His relation 
is very much like that of the President of the 
United States to the army of the United States 
— not emphasizing the military aspect of our 
comparison too strongly. To the superintend- 
ent, as the Pastor's subordinate, the Church has 
committed a specific trust — as much to relieve 
the Pastor as any thing else — and it behooves 
the latter to insure the largest freedom to this 
substitute in the discharge of his duties. 

The wise Pastor secures as much service as 



Tin: Church School. 123 

possible from his lay members. He never does 
any work that he can induce a member of his 
Church to perform as acceptably and success- 
fully as himself. 

The school having been committed to the 
care of the subordinate, our model Pastor never 
trespasses upon the superintendent's preroga- 
tives there. These, conscientiously respected 
by the Pastor, are not exactingly exercised by 
the superintendent, and there is a sort of rivalry 
between them to secure double honor each for 
the other, which gives confidence, unity, and 
power to the school, such as it could never se- 
cure under an administration weakened by 
petty jealousies and contemptible competitions. 

3. The Pastor will occasionally conduct the 
4< General Review" of the lesson. Indeed, un- 
less the superintendent has special facility in 
this, we regard it as a service belonging to the 
Pastor. It is here that his office as " Head 
Teacher " touches the school, and the methods 
and success of his subordinates are brought to 



124 The Church School. 

the test. But in this he will be careful to avoid 
the very appearance of trespassing upon the 
superintendent's ground. 

4. The Pastor will arrange with the superin- 
tendent for special opportunities to drill the 
school in the Catechism, in sacred geography, 
history, etc., etc. Once a month, perhaps, after 
the regular lesson and review for the day have 
been completed, the Pastor may introduce a 
special service called (as by one Pastor of our 
acquaintance) " The Evangelistery," or (as by 
another) " The Pastoral," designed to drill the 
school in the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' 
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, choice selections 
from the Bible, (such as the Beatitudes, the 
Twenty- third Psalm, etc.,) old hymns and tunes 
of the Church, etc., etc. Such an exercise, 
joined in heartily by teachers and scholars, 
occupying but a few minutes each month, would 
perhaps give the Pastor more permanent influ- 
ence than a too frequent appearance before his 
school. 



The Church School. 125 

5. The Pastor will not interrupt classes dur- 
ing the regular study hour by visitations and 
conversations. Our theory is that no one (not 
even the superintendent) should visit any class 
during the lesson hour. 

6. He will watch jealously the literature of 
the school, co-operating with the superintendent 
and a judicious committee in selecting the 
proper books and papers for distribution. 

7. We think that ordinarily the Pastor should 
not be required to teach a class in Sunday 
school, especially if he is expected to preach 
two sermons besides on the same day. There 
are circumstances which justify the opposite 
course. Where he is the only man who can 
hold a certain grade of young intellects in his 
school, the Pastor may be expected to accept 
the position of teacher ; but he should keep on 
the lookout for some strong man or woman to 
take his place as soon as possible. 

V. What may the Pastor do during the week 
for the Sunday school of zvhich lie has charge '? 



126 The Church School. 

Knowing that the single hour a week usually 
devoted to its sessions is not sufficient to accom- 
plish the full results contemplated by this insti- 
tution, the Pastor will seriously inquire how the 
week-day power of the Sunday school may be 
augmented. In his own reply to this practical 
question we shall find his measure of responsi- 
bility recognized, and the outline of his duties 
laid down. 

i. The Pastor may hold a regular teachers' 
meeting every week. He may recognize it as 
one of the established services of his Church, 
announcing it on the Sabbath, carefully prepar- 
ing for its exercises, consecrating zeal, time, and 
talents to it, convincing the Church of the high 
estimate he places upon it, and then, by his ad- 
mirable management of its services, he may win 
and retain every Sunday school teacher as a 
regular attendant and student. 

2. It does not follow from the above state- 
ment that the Pastor should invariably conduct 
the teachers' meeting, and yet it is primarily his 



The Church School. 127 

right to do so. He is the "pastor and teacher" 
of the whole Church. With him rests the re- 
sponsibility as to the doctrines of which his 
Church is, in all its departments, the exponent. 
It is his duty to see that all the subordinate 
teachers and officers of his Church are correct 
in their theory of religion, consistent in their 
daily lives, and competent to instruct the youth 
and adults of whom the Holy Ghost has made 
him overseer. In many cases the abundant 
labors of the Pastor in other departments, and 
the special fitness of the superintendent or other 
person, may justify the performance of this 
service by other than the Pastor. As a matter 
of expediency, or by a special arrangement of 
the Church itself, the superintendent may reg- 
ularly conduct the teachers' meeting. But 
where there is a Pastor the original right and 
responsibility in this matter are with him. A 
wise Pastor always secures as much service as 
possible from his Church, but never forgets that 
he is responsible for the matter, measure, and 



128 The Church School. 

method of instruction in the Holy Scriptures 
which his Church imparts. He will, however, 
carefully conserve that most important of all the 
elements of Church power — mutual charity. 
The maintenance of authority at the expense of 
charity is a questionable gain. 

3. He may, during the week, hold other and 
special services, varying in their character, but 
all designed to expound and apply the word of 
God, and to promote the habit of Bible reading 
and study among his people. How much, for 
example, a minister might accomplish by giving 
a series of " drills " in Bible history and geog- 
raphy, or by occasional lectures on Bible archae- 
ology, natural history, etc. How often the 
collation of Scripture texts by a large audience, 
enforcing a single doctrine of the Bible, might be 
made the medium of spiritual power to a Church. 
Now we believe that every Pastor should labor 
to promote and popularize Bible study ; and 
he who rightly prizes, and himself personally 
and professionally searches and loves God's word, 



The Church School. 129 

will not only find time for such special labor, 
but will throw into it such genuine earnestness, 
and multiply such skillful devices, as to render 
" our Pastor's week-evening Bible service " a 
most popular and powerful agency for winning 
souls and edifying the Church. 

The wise and ingenious author of " Ad 
Clerum " suggests : " Wherever the exercises 
of the pulpit are sustained with vigor, the Bible 
class will be found powerfully instrumental for 
good ; and where pulpit duties are inefficiently 
discharged, something is requisite to supplement 
their deficiencies and compensate for their 
weakness." 

We shall be excused for making another 
quotation from Dr. Parker : 

" In the Bible you will find scope enough for 
the exhaustion of all your ability and resources 
without frittering away your time on things 
too high for you. I have found it very con- 
venient and profitable to follow up in a Bible 
class a course of expository preaching : say, for 



130 The Church School. 

example, you are expounding one of the Gospels 
in a series of Sunday morning lectures ; get the 
members of your Bible class to take notes of 
your exposition, and to give the criticism or 
argument in their own words. This will sup- 
ply an excellent basis for further discussion in 
class ; and if your experience correspond to my 
own, you will often receive suggestions enough 
to enable you to prepare a second and better 
lecture on your last Sunday morning's subject. 
You will probably find a difficulty in getting 
some of your members to adopt the habit of 
taking notes and making abstracts or para- 
phrases, but a little gentle persuasion in private 
will often secure the object you have in view. 
In conducting processes of this kind I have 
received many a hint as to the best method of 
preaching. You find out the ignorance of your 
hearers ; you see how they mistake the mean- 
ing of words which to the preacher are quite 
simple ; you feel how slow they are to compre- 
hend any process of reasoning, and how little 



Tin-: Church School. 131 

account they can give of arguments on which 
you set great store. These facts will often clip 
the wings of your soaring rhetoric, and force 
you, if you are an honest steward, to preach not 
for yourself, but to others. This is the conde- 
scension which comes of being crucified with 
the Saviour, and this the holy desire which is 
intent on the one infinitely blessed object of 
saving the souls of them that hear the holy 
word from your lips." 

Here, too, we may quote a letter from the 
interesting life of Dr. James Hamilton by 
William Arnot. The letter was written to 
his friend June 16, 1840, but it has the ring 
of a Sunday school man of 1872 who had de- 
cided to " teach by the use of objects in the 
new r style." 

" My dear William : — The war must be 
carried on at all points. Like you, we have got 
Sabbath schools, and, like you, I mean to en- 
lighten the children on Bible botany. This 



132 The Church School. 

letter is an order for the requisite ammunition ; 
and though it implies a vast deal of trouble, 
your ecclesiastical zeal will come to the help of 
your patience, and your brotherly love to the 
help of both. Send me, therefore, the follow- 
ing articles : three volumes ' Library of Enter- 
taining Knowledge — Forest Trees, Fruits, Veg- 
etable Substances;' Harris's 'Natural History 
of the Bible ; ' Paxton's * Illustrations,' the 
botanical volume, (these two from Divinity Li- 
brary,) and, failing these, any good book on the 
subject; 'Edinburgh University Annual/ if 
you can get it from any one, for my essay. 
Item : from Jane the brown parcel of fruits 
which I gave her, the cone from Lebanon, and 
the twig of sycamore. Among the papers in 
my herbarium, next the window, is a twig of 
olive and a piece of red everlasting from Tabor. 
I think they are wrapped up in a piece of paper. 
Item : roll up the palm leaf into a coil, which I 
think may be done without breaking it. Buy a 
pomegranate, by all means, if it can be got ; a 



The Church School. 133 

few almonds and walnuts, both in the shell. 
In some apothecary's or perfumer's you may 
be able to get me a bit of frankincense, and it 
would be a great affair if I could get a few 
olives, well preserved in a vial. They may be 
had in a confectioner's. Also some dates from 
a fruiterer. When all these are packed, send 
them per Saturday's steamer. 

" Ever yours, affectionately, 

" James Hamilton." 

4. The Pastor may, through the teachers' 
meeting, the Bible service, and in special normal 
classes, develop the teaching power of the 
Church, raising up from the young men and 
women in his Sunday school a corps of conse- 
crated, competent, and enthusiastic teachers 
and class-leaders. The distinction, by the way, 
between the office of Sunday school teacher 
and that of class-leader is not so great as cus- 
tom and general conviction have made it. We 
need more class-leading Sunday school teachers. 



134 The Church School. 

Not less do we need Bible-teaching class-leaders. 
The normal class instructions of an enterpris- 
ing and efficient Pastor will return speedily in 
the increased efficiency of these his helpers. 

Since the Sunday school teacher is the Pas- 
tor's assistant, and since his efforts may so 
effectually supplement the efforts of the pulpit, 
to whom, if not to the Pastor, shall the Sunday 
school teacher look for assistance ? The Pastor 
is ex officio the teacher of his teachers. He is 
their professor of biblical interpretation and 
systematic theology. 

The minister should, therefore, be a thorough 
biblical scJiolar. If he has been trained in a 
theological seminary, he should not despise, so 
as to forget, the rudiments of that training. If 
he never enjoyed these advantages, he should 
spend some time every day in making up for 
the earlier deficiencies. An hour or two a day, 
systematically devoted to reading and study, 
with reference to this acquisition, will in two or 
three years enable him to consult the original 



The Church School. 135 

of the Old and New Testaments, make him 
familiar with sacred archaeology in its several 
branches, and with all else that appertains to 
biblical interpretation. The fact that he prose- 
cutes these studies in order to teach, and the 
constant effort of simplifying and systematizing 
his knowledge, will make it doubly valuable to 
him, and more than compensate for the failure 
of his earlier years. 

5. He may attend, as frequently as practica- 
ble, Sunday school conventions and institutes, 
both union and denominational, that he may 
observe carefully the methods adopted by other 
workers, imbibe somewhat of their spirit, and 
communicate no less than he receives, because 
of the peculiar zeal and persistent fidelity with 
which at home he prosecutes his work. 




All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. 

O that there were such an heart in them, that they would 
fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might 
be well with them, and with their children for ever ! 

Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand ; for I 
will make him a great nation. 

Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give 
thee thy wages. 

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man ; 

So are children of the youth. 

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them : 

They shall not be ashamed, 

But they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. 

That our sons may be as plants 

Grown up in their youth ; 

That our daughters may be as corner stones, 

Polished after the similitude of a palace. 

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful 
things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and 
saying, Hosanna to the Son of David ; they were sore dis- 
pleased. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH. 
"Forbid them not to come unto me." — Matt, xix, 14. 

\T one who has read " The Last Days of 
Pompeii " can forget the sudden advent of 
Sallust into the arena of the Pompeiian amphi- 
theater, dragging in with him the priest Calenus, 
and crying out, " Remove the Athenian ! haste 
— he is innocent ! Arrest Arbaces the Egyp- 
tian — he is the murderer of Apacides ! " 

The people cried out, "Arbaces to the Lion /" 
The praetor called out, " Officer, remove the 
accused Glaucus." 

" As the praetor gave the word of release there 
was a cry of joy — a female voice — a child's voice, 
and it was of joy ! It rang through the heart 
of the assembly with electric force ; it was 
touching, it was holy, that child's voice. And 



138 The Church School. 

the populace echoed it back with sympathizing 
congratulation. ' Silence ! ' said the grave 
praetor — 'who is there?' 'The blind girl — 
Nydia,' answered Sallust ; 'it is her hand that 
has raised Calenus from the grave, and deliv- 
ered Glaucus from the lions/ " 

So the voice of the child rings through the 
earth. Every-where it is " touching, it is holy, 
that child's voice." It calls out from the 
realm of innocency and faith and joyousness 
to the world of guilt and of evil consciousness 
and of despair. Thank God for the ministry 
of the child ! 

" Nearer I seem to God while gazing upon thee ! 
'Tis ages since he made his youngest star ; 
His hand were on thee as 'twere yesterday, 
Thou later revelation ! 

* * * * * 

O bright and singing babe, 
What shalt thou be hereafter?" 

The Christian Church answers this question ; 
answers it as no other religious faith on the 
earth has been able to answer it. 



The Church School. 139 

" What shalt thou be hereafter ? " Behold 
Him of Nazareth standing with outstretched 
hands : " Suffer the little children, and forbid 
them not, to come unto me ; for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven !" 

We have not heretofore spoken of the Sun- 
day school as though it were exclusively for the 
instruction of children. We do not so regard 
it, and do not so speak of it. We have been 
trying to call the attention of the Church to 
the fact that the Sunday school is designed to 
promote a thorough knowledge of the word of 
God, and a thorough training in the Christian 
life. This being its aim, and adults needing 
such knowledge and training as much as chil- 
dren, we have tried to interest adults in the 
Sunday school. The children will attend the 
school of the Church without much persuasion. 
They should also be brought up to a regular 
attendance at the preaching service. They 
should early be led to a personal knowledge 
of Christ and an identification of themselves 



140 The Church School. 

with the Church. To these two topics let us 
give some attention. 

First, the attendance of children upon preach- 
ing. It is desirable. The service is one di- 
vinely appointed. It is a means of spiritual 
quickening. It is an intellectual stimulant. It 
elevates the tastes. It is a wholesome way of 
passing a portion of God's day. It is calcu- 
lated to exert a great influence upon the child 
as a member of society and of the nation whose 
prosperity so much depends upon the recog- 
nition of God. The reverence there begotten 
for the minister, as an embassador of heaven, 
has a beneficial effect. The worship is inspir- 
ing. Blessed are the children whose feet tread 
the courts of the Lord's house on the day of 
the Lord ; who go thither from habit, never 
having known any thing else from earliest 
childhood ! 

We are familiar with the usual objections : 
" The child cannot understand the sermon. " 
Nor do all adults. We shall do well to remem- 



The Church School. 141 

ber that the children are more appreciative 
hearers than many suppose, and that with 
increase of culture and wisdom and tact on the 
part of the ministry, we shall have more sim- 
plicity and plainness of speech in the pulpit, to 
the advantage of both children and adults. " Our 
children are disinclined to go." How does it 
happen that they have ever had any choice in 
the matter ? They should not remember the 
day when they did not attend preaching. But 
then, what has their disinclination to do with 
the claims of God and of their earthly parents ? 
Have they not learned prompt and unquestion- 
ing obedience to a father's command ? And do 
parents grant children a release from all uncon- 
genial tasks ? Because disinclined to it, do they 
neglect the week-day school and its appointed 
lessons? "We may prejudice our children 
against public service, so that when they become 
old they will not attend because alienated from 
the Church by the rigorous discipline of child- 
hood." The opposite is true. The men and 



142 The Church School 

women of our day who are most faithful in 
attendance on the sanctuary are those who have 
been habituated to it. Those who were allowed 
in youth " to have their own way" are not usu- 
ally the most devout saints, nor the most regu- 
lar in the discharge of public or private religious 
duties. We do not sympathize with what are 
called " special services for children " when they 
serve as an excuse for non-attendance at the 
public worship. 

Our rule is this : Give some truth in every 
sermon to hearers of all capacities, to every 
man his portion in due season, rightly dividing 
the word of God, and our children will grow up 
to reverence and delight in the sanctuary and in 
the law of the Lord. 

Let ministers urge upon heads of families the 
importance of this duty, and then let them study 
so to read the Scripture lessons, and order the 
service of song, and preach the words of eternal 
life, that the " duty " discharged by the parent 
may be by the Pastor transformed into a 



The Church School. 143 

" delight " to the children. So shall they bless 
him : and the blessing of a little child is next 
in preciousness to the blessing of the Lord 
himself. 

A few words upon the second topic : The 
children and Church-membership. Whatever 
be the theological opinion and the ecclesiasti- 
cal policy with reference to childhood and its 
religious life and relations, one thing is in- 
controvertible. The earlier a child can be 
brought to a personal recognition of Jesus as 
his Saviour, and to a personal identification 
with the Church, the better for him. Baptized 
or unbaptized in infancy, at birth a sinner or 
by the provisions of grace virtually a saint, 
with these questions we have not now to do ; 
but as early in the child's life as possible, we 
say, teach him implicit trust in Christ, and the 
full consecration of his little life and all its 
possibilities to Christ. We may depend upon 
the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, who will 
supplement our lack of insight into the peculiar 



144 The Church School. 

nature of the child, and the immaturity of 
thought and conviction which we are so prone 
to attribute to our youth. 

Let us, however, be wise with our very 
highest wisdom in this direction. Remember- 
ing that the conversion of the little one is the 
work of the Spirit, let us seek the Spirit. Re- 
membering that the Spirit operates through 
the truth, let us teach the truth. Especially 
do we advise : 

i. Distinguish between a transitory emotion 
easily traceable to circumstances, and the deeper 
and often less demonstrative work of the Spirit 
of God. 

2. Guard against unwise public methods of 
" seeking religion." We believe that children 
should publicly profess Christ ; but we are 
painfully aware that the very measures often 
adopted to secure this end are more likely to 
develop pride and morbid self-consciousness 
than piety and humility. Let God's minis- 
ters guard this interest under the leading of 



The Church School. 145 

God's Spirit and the dictates of their best 
judgment. 

3. Take good care of the little disciples after 
the first profession. Teach them, bear with 
them, aid them; remember that they are chil- 
dren, and never seek to adjust upon their souls 
an overgrown type of piety which has been 
taken out of a "religious biography," and 
which was, even with the adult, an exception, 
if not an excrescence. Never try to take the 
"boy" out of a boy in order to make him a 
Christian. What he loses is worth more to 
him than what he receives in the exchange. 
Rather lead him into the paths of practical 
faith in God. Teach him the glory of hard 
service for Christ. Exalt principle. Store his 
mind with Gospel facts and maxims and 
promises. Teach him to pray daily, to 
love Jesus as he loves his mother, to be 
true always and every- where, to avoid all 
pretenses, to fairly represent the power and 

nobleness of the Christian religion at home, 
10 



146 



The Church School. 



in the play-ground, at school, and in the 
street. 

Of the Sunday-school teacher as a guide 
and class-leader we shall speak further on. 




He that ruleth, with diligence. 

For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man 
that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than 
he ought to think ; but to think soberly, according as God 
hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 

The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, 
And addeth learning to his lips. 
Pleasant words are a^ an honeycomb, 
Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 

Hear ; for I will speak of excellent things ; 
And the opening of my lips shall be right things. 

We are taught and we teach by something about us that 
never goes into language at all. — Bishop Huntington. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SUPERINTENDENT. 

" And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, 
for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after." 
— Heb. iii, 5. 

'THHERE are three qualifications which are 
-*- indispensable to the efficient Sunday 
school superintendent : 

I. A true personal character. This is im- 
portant, since it determines the quality and 
spirit of his teachings, the character of the per- 
sons whom he selects as his assistants, and 
makes itself felt in the very atmosphere of the 
school-room. His unconscious influence should 
be helpful and holy. He is all the while com- 
municating a personal, involuntary influence. 
Like Hercules, of whom it was said, " Whether 
he walked or stood or sat down, he conquered," 



150 The Church School. 

— the Sunday school superintendent is affecting 
the opinions, tastes, and habits of others. "We 
are watched," says Bishop Huntington ; " we are 
searched through and through by those we un- 
dertake to lead ; not in a jealous or malignant 
criticism, but in earnest, good faith." Our 
looks teach. "The countenance of holy men," 
says Chrysostom, " is full of spiritual power." 
Our gait, and tones of voice, and spontaneous 
expressions, and the reputations we have, all 
are full of teaching energy. A superintendent 
should be a man of unsullied name ; a man 
whom it pays a teacher or a scholar to think 
about ; who, when his name is casually men- 
tioned, or by some association suggested, during 
the week, brings to the heart a feeling of glad- 
ness and gratitude and aspiration. There is 
scarcely a scholar who does not have occasion 
to think about his superintendent a score of 
times every week. Well for both if the acci- 
dental recurrence of the superintendent's name or 
face or voice brings a holier purpose to the pupil. 



The Church School. 151 

2. The second element in the successful su- 
perintendent is the quick eye. He must see in 
order to govern. He must see promptly. There 
are men who seem never to detect disturbing 
elements in their schools. They have no sensi- 
tiveness. If aware of trouble they seem unable 
to locate it. And so the school runs on with 
undetected, and of course uncorrected, evils to 
hamper and weaken it. 

3. A man may have character and a quick 
eye, and yet not be a good superintendent. The 
third indispensable qualification is governing 
tact. He must be able to touch the spot where 
trouble is in the school-room. We know su- 
perintendents who stamp and ring and scold 
and suffer, but do not know how to make 
things better. 

There may be inherent strength without 
ability to rule. The connection may be want- 
ing between the engine and the spindles. A 
cog is broken. A strap has slipped. The power 
goes for nothing if the connection be severed. 



152 The Church School. 

The true superintendent has personal power, is 
prompt to see where its exercise is demanded, 
and knows just how and when and where to 
apply it. 

We speak of the superintendent principally 
as a governor. As such he governs in the in- 
terest of the Church, not regarding his school 
as an independency. He co-operates with the 
Pastor. He announces all public and social 
Church services in the school, and does his best 
to secure the attendance of all. It is in no 
small degree owing to his efforts that the Sab- 
bath morning service and the week evening 
prayer-meetings are crowded. 

He governs through the teachers, as the 
colonel of a regiment through the captains of 
the several companies. 

He governs in kindness, never publicly re- 
buking teacher or pupil — repressing disorder 
firmly ; correcting irregularities promptly ; but 
doing all this without appearing to be even for 
one moment ill at ease himself, and never in thg 



The Church School. 153 

slightest degree violating the highest standard 
of courtesy. 

He governs honestly. He never buys schol- 
ars from a neighboring school by the offer of 
costly presents, nor bribes his own scholars to 
proselyte in any way for the sake of enlarging 
the attendance. He regards all such things 
with ineffable scorn and contempt. 

He governs in calmness. He has a strong 
will, and brings it to bear with heavy pressure 
on all departments of his school ; but it is done 
so gently and in so quiet a way that one might 
almost charge him with governing too little. 
He brings a school to perfect stillness at will. 
There is a charm in the quietness of all his 
movements. The school feels it, and delights 
to respond by respectful and attentive silence 
to his word of command. As governor, the su- 
perintendent is chiefly a protector. He protects 
scholars against demoralizing associations in 
the class ; against indifferent and incompetent 
teachers ; against the tendency so painfully 



154 The Church School. 

manifest in our day to irreverence in the house 
of God. He protects teachers against the 
interruptions of librarian, missionary collectors, 
visitors and speech-makers — in every possible 
way aiding and encouraging and inspiring them 
in their work. 

He is superintendent all the week, and not 
only on the Sabbath. As superintendent he 
reads up the literature of his profession, attends 
institutes, visits his teachers in a pastoral 
way, regularly attends all public services of the 
Church, co-operates with the proper officers in 
promoting the growth of Zion, and thus pro- 
longs his term of office indefinitely, because 
" faithful " like Moses " in all his house as a 
servant " of God and of his Church. 

The superintendent has much influence in 
attracting adult members to the school, and 
in exalting the word among them. He aids 
the Pastor in the week-evening special classes, 
and will never be content until a flourishing 
Normal Class is giving good promise of 3 



The Church School. 



i5S 



band of thoroughly trained teachers for the 
future. 

This is our ideal Superintendent of the 
Church School. May the number of such 
laborers be multiplied ! 




He was more honorable than the thirty, but he attained not 
to the first three. 

And these are they whom David set over the service of 
song in the house of the Lord, after that the ark had rest. 

Out of Machir came down governors, 

And out of Zebulon they that handle the pen of the writer. 

Shelomith and his brethren were over all the treasures of 
the dedicated things. 

Of making many books there is no end. 

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many 
witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be 
able to teach others also. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OTHER OFFICERS. 

There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. 
— i Cor. xii, 5. 

\I TE have recognized the Sunday school in 
its higher form as an integrant part of 
the Church ; the pastor as its head, and the 
superintendent as his assistant and subordinate. 
Thus all Church officers, elders, deacons, vestry- 
men, stewards, class leaders, or by whatever offi- 
cial title designated, become identified with the 
Church school ; and all so-called " officers of 
the school," who are essential to its organization 
and successful operation, become thereby exalted 
to the dignity of Church officials. They may 
be neither the head nor the heart of the " body 
of Christ." The lowly service which some are 
required to perform may cause them to be ac- 



158 The Church School. 

counted but the finger or the foot. And yet if 
the blood of the heart throb in them, their serv- 
ice is no mean thing in His sight who judgeth 
not according to man's judgment. The finger 
may at the last wear a lustrous jewel, and the 
foot tread upon golden streets. The motive of 
service is what determines its worth. What- 
ever the " administration," be it in matters high 
or low, as the world measures the divers minis- 
tries of the Church, "the same Lord " will use 
it for his glory. 

We shall offer a few practical hints in this 
connection upon the duties of Church officers 
who are more immediately associated with the 
school department itself, premising that all who 
are charged with the management of ecclesias- 
tical affairs — whether in matters material or 
spiritual — should feel a keen and ever-increas- 
ing interest in this branch of the Church, and 
should deliberate and legislate in its behalf; 
devising liberal financial endowments, providing 
commodious and comfortable quarters, supply- 



The Church School. 159 

ing without stint all requisite apparatus for the 
most successful prosecution of this work. 

In the Church school there must be persons 
" set over the service of song." What would 
the Sunday school be without music ? What 
would the music be without some responsible 
and well-qualified conductor ? Let us say a 
few things about this officer. 

He should believe in music as a medium of 
worship and as a means of grace, and this even 
in the Sunday school, where it has been too 
frequently (our pen had almost said, too com- 
monly) a mere source of entertainment and of 
enjoyment. The chorister we covet believes 
that the singing in Sunday school should be 
full of worship — sincere, reverent, joyful praise 
— cultivating in our youth the devotional senti- 
ment, and uplifting them toward God in blessed 
communion every time they convene to consult 
his word. Therefore the chorister should be a 
Christian. This is the first requisition ; and 
this will give an unction to his leadership which 



i6o The Church School. 

may well compensate the lack of high profes- 
sional attainment. We do not depreciate the 
one by strenuously advocating the other. The 
employment of worldly, trifling, tippling leaders 
of song in the Sunday schools is simply an 
abomination. Such men corrupt our youth, 
and neutralize the holy sentiment which the 
hymns of Zion put upon their lips. 

As leader of singing in a Church school the 
chorister will use the music and the hymns of 
the Church so as to retain among the young 
people a knowledge of the " old hymns," and in 
this way train them to sing in the sanctuary, 
that the distinction may not be too marked, 
as is now the case between so-called " Sunday 
school" and " Church" music. 

As a subordinate of both Pastor and Super- 
intendent he will be guided by them in his 
selections, and will aim in every possible way 
to increase through the school the power of 
this important service. It will be a grand 
day, indeed, for the Church of Christ when 



The Church School. 161 

in all the public assemblies the "hosannas" 
of her children are heard ; when the liveliest 
Gospel melodies of these latter days alternate 
in the sanctuary with the more grand and 
stately tunes of a former age, and all the people, 
with more care for the sentiment than for the 
style of rendering it, give utterance in loud and 
united voice to the praises of God. This was 
one secret of the success of early Methodism. 
This is one of the greatest needs of modern 
Methodism. May the Sunday school do her 
part toward correcting the present unfortunate 
tendency toward "artistic performances" and 
orchestral monopolies in the house of God ! 

The Secretary is not an unimportant officer 
in the Sunday school. He is assistant to the 
" clerk " or " recording secretary " of the Church. 
Are not the names he registers by that very act 
placed on the roll of the Church ? Not all, in- 
deed, as full members, nor as probationers, nor 
as baptized " subjects ; " but if in none of these 

relations, certainly as candidates for the Church 
11 



1 62 The Church School. 

— " catechumens " if you please — and thus within 
her grasp and under her influence. The secre- 
tary should therefore record names cautiously, 
pass them over to the Pastor regularly, notice 
and report absences promptly, and seek by all 
the means in his power — not forgetting prayer 
and personal correspondence — to hold in the 
Church perpetually those whose names he is 
permitted to record on the Sunday school roll. 
He should see that scholars who must leave the 
school are provided with certificates of member- 
ship and standing. We venture the assertion 
that twenty good secretaries who hold the true 
theory of the Church school will save in one 
year at least a hundred persons to the Church 
in the places to which they remove, and this 
simply by providing the departing pupils with 
certificates, and by anticipating their arrival at 
the place of destination by a letter, or circular, 
or duplicate certificate, forwarded to the Pastor 
resident there. This good work may be still 
further facilitated by following the dismissed 



The Church School. 163 

members with frequent circulars relating to the 
school, and with personal letters of Christian 
friendship, counsel, and inquiry. The results 
of such correspondence should be recorded in 
a book kept for that purpose. In this way the 
secretary may all the while extend the influence 
of the particular Church with which he is identi- 
fied, and by his pen perform a service of inesti- 
mable value. 

The duties of the Treasurer are few, easily 
understood, and usually well performed. We 
hope that the day is not far distant when each 
Sunday school shall have an annual appropria- 
tion from the Church of which it is a part. This 
arrangement will render the treasurer's service 
still more simple and agreeable. 

And now concerning the Librarian. We 
cannot speak of his duties without advancing a 
theory relative to the library itself. And this 
is our thinking on this annoying but important 
question : We believe that the Church should 
purchase, organize, distribute, and replenish the 



164 The Church School. 

library of the Church Sunday school. 1. Be- 
cause the Church is largely responsible for 
the literature read by her members, and by 
those who are providentially under her direction. 
2. Because the dignity attaching to the title and 
idea of a " Church library" will tend to improve 
the character of the books selected. They will 
be more likely to meet the tastes of adults and 
advanced young people than a so-called " Sun- 
day school library/' 3. Because by this arrange- 
ment the Sunday school will be relieved of the 
odium that it now incurs from the unfavorable 
reputation which Sunday school books bear 
among cultivated people. 4. Because a Church 
library will be kept open the more easily during 
the week to supply readers ; thus avoiding in- 
terruption of the lessons and waste of time in 
Sunday school. 

How shall a school desiring to secure these 
benefits proceed in carrying out the plan ? 
1. Let the Sunday school officers and teachers 
by a formal vote transfer the library now in the 



The Church School. 165 

school to the officers of the Church, requesting 
them to accept, and to establish a Church 
library. 2. Let the board (or whatever the 
Church organization may be called) appoint a 
committee of at least five judicious, cultivated 
Christian ladies and gentlemen, whose duty it 
shall be to read and approve new books, and 
every month to place a new installment on the 
shelves, that the interest in the library may be 
always fresh. 3. Let the library be opened be- 
fore and after prayer-meeting on a week even- 
ing ; also on Saturday afternoon and evening. 
To accommodate persons living in the country 
or at a distance from the Church, let the Church 
library be opened on Sabbath at such hours as 
will not interfere with the service of preaching 
or of Bible study. 4. Keep a list of all persons 
who agree to receive, read, and return the books. 
To all such issue free cards and catalogues. 

In some places this plan may be wholly im- 
practicable. It will grow more and more into 
favor, how r ever, with the large schools, especially 



1 66 The Church School. 

as they learn to depend more upon Bible study 
and training than upon other and outside at- 
tractions. 

In the school or independent of it, the library 
must have a manager and a system. We depend 
more upon the manager than upon the system. 
Given, a librarian with tact, industry, and en- 
thusiasm, and he will make any scheme — even 
the poorest — a success, while without the right 
man to handle it, the best method in the world 
will prove a failure. 

Last, but by no means least in the roll of 
Church school officers, are teachers and class- 
leaders, of whom as workers of the same order 
and as sub-Pastors we shall speak in our closing 
chapter. 



Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers 
have set. 

And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all 
the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with 
him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, 
both small and great : and he read in their ears all the words 
of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of 
the Lord. 

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ? 
By taking heed thereto according to thy word. 

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, 
and the word of God abideth in you. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE OLDER SCHOLARS. 

More noble, ... in that they received the word with all 
readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily. — Acts 
xvii, ii. 

TI 7E do not despair of the old, although we 
* ^ labor sedulously, and with such confi- 
dence, in behalf of the young. Sometimes we 
are afraid that theories which place so high an 
estimate upon the opportunities of childhood 
may tend to discourage those who, looking back 
from middle age upon lost privileges, almost 
assure themselves that past neglect has for- 
feited future opportunity. The lamentation 
which closes with the fateful words, " Too late ! " 
may prove disastrous to the doubting and de- 
spairing soul. 

Why should we pronounce our own doom 



170 The Church School. 

while the sun shines upon us, and the good 
God prolongs our lives, and the glorious Gospel 
appeals with its " whosoevers " to the ears and 
hearts of men ? 

Why should the old neglect mental improve- 
ment because in early life they gave so little 
attention to it ? The records of history speak 
hopefully to the old. We have somewhere met 
the following illustrations of the possibilities of 
age : " Socrates at an extreme age learned to 
play on musical instruments. Cato at eighty 
years of age thought proper to learn the Greek 
language. Plutarch when between seventy and 
eighty commenced the study of Latin. Boc- 
caccio was thirty-five years of age when he 
commenced his studies in light literature, yet 
he became one of the three great masters of 
the Tuscan dialect, Dante and Petrarch being 
the other two. Sir H. Spelman neglected the 
sciences in his youth, but commenced the study 
of them when he was between fifty and sixty 
years of age. After this time he became a 



The Church School. 171 

most learned antiquarian and lawyer. Colbeth, 
the famous French minister, at sixty years of 
age returned to his Latin and law studies. 
Ludovico at the great age of one hundred and 
fifteen wrote the memories of his own times. 
Ogilby, the translator of Homer and Virgil, was 
unacquainted with Latin and Greek until he was 
past fifty years of age. Franklin did not com- 
mence his philosophical pursuits until he had 
reached his fiftieth year. Accorso, a great 
lawyer, being asked why he began his study of 
law so late, answered, that indeed he besran it 
late ; he could therefore master it sooner. 
Dryden in his sixty-eighth year commenced 
the translation of the Iliad, and his most 
pleasing productions were written in his old 
age." 

Many an old man has learned the wisdom 
of Christ, and commenced a career of disci- 
pleship with the frosts of age whitening his 
brow. With regret for a wasted past of three- 
score years, he has consecrated the remaining 



172 The Church School. 

eternity of his existence to the God who made 
and redeemed him. 

Let not the aged neglect the improvement of 
mind and heart and time and all gracious op- 
portunity. Let the Sunday school be a school 
for all. Let the Bible be the text-book of the 
infant and of the octogenarian. Let hope cheer 
and inspire the trembling, self-distrustful, re- 
gretful man who, having long absented himself 
from Christ, seeks at last to be a true and 
studious disciple in the school of our great 
Master. 

But there is an important class in the Church 
and community who do not count themselves 
old enough to be called adults, and yet who 
protest against being regarded as children. 
We call them " the young people." Now the 
Church must have a firmer hold upon this class. 
One or two hours a week of Sabbath school sing- 
ing, teaching, and social cheer will not suffice. 

Here is the great problem — How shall we 
secure the regular attendance of a larger propor- 



The Church School. 173 

tion of young people and adults at our schools, 
and how gain a firmer hold upon them when 
once connected with us ? It is important, too, 
in securing this hold, to do it by means that 
will contribute to the great end of our Church- 
work — the development of Christian character 
through Bible study. Now, how can we induce 
our people generally to study the word of God ? 
How surround this work with attractions suffi- 
cient to counteract the dissipating influences of 
the world ? How make such study contribute 
to the social life and strength, as" well as to the 
spirituality, of the Church ? These questions 
have been asked over and over again by Pastors 
and influential laymen. We propose to give 
an answer. 

1. The Pastor himself has more influence in 
this matter than any other man, we had almost 
said than any five men in his Church. His 
position gives him a sort of authority. His 
words weigh more than the words of other men. 
As we have already shown, in his pulpit an- 



174 The Church School. 

nouncements, prayers, and sermons, in prayer- 
meetings, in pastoral calls, in casual contacts 
with the members of his Church, he may do a 
vast deal for this work. Then what so mighty 
as his personal example ? 

2. A few influential Church-members and 
office-holders may form themselves into an effi- 
cient league whose words and example, opera- 
ting in the several spheres of personal influence, 
would draw many adults toward the school of 
the Church. 

3. A higher order of teaching in the school 
will work incalculably more than outside influ- 
ence, and where the two can co-operate we may 
look for rapid and gratifying growth. 

4. The relinquishment (in smaller places) of 
one of the sermons would afford time for a serv- 
ice of Bible study. In large cities, where pulpit 
competitions are rife and require two regular 
public services, the modification of one of these 
into a sort of popular Bible lecture-lesson would 
soon so charm the people with biblical study, 



The Church School. 175 

and furnish them opportunity to attend to it, 
that the Church could fulfill the Master's com- 
mand to teach, as it now does to preach, the word. 
Such a " Bible service," with simultaneous an- 
swers from the vast congregation, with illustra- 
tive diagrams, maps, etc., to aid the teacher or 
lecturer, with songs of salvation sung by old and 
young in a magnificent chorus-choir composed 
of the whole assembly, would be no desecration 
of God's day, and would develop vastly more 
intellectual activity and love for the Holy Script- 
ures than it is possible for the present preach- 
ing service to secure. 

5. But at present let us see what may be done 
during the week in the direction indicated. And 
to make our plan clear, let us formulate it in 
a Constitution. We suggest it tentatively, for 
although during our early pastorate we employed 
some of its features, others are, so far as we are 
concerned, entirely untested. 



176 The Church School. 

Constitution of the Senior Circle. 

1. It is the design of the Senior Circle con- 
nected with Church to encourage the 

habitual and thorough study of the Holy Script- 
ures, especially by the young people and adults 
of the Church and community ; the cultivation 
of correct habits of reading and study, and the 
promotion of a true social life in connection with 
the Church-; and to do this in such a manner as 
shall advance the divine kingdom in our midst, 
tend to the deepening of spiritual experience, 
and the increase of our moral and religious 
influence. 

2. There shall be a principal, secretary, and 
treasurer, who, together with the Pastor of the 
Church and the superintendent of the Sunday 
school, shall constitute a board of managers, all 
of whom shall be elected annually. [Where the 
Pastor or superintendent is elected as principal 
another name shall be added, so that the board 
shall always consist of five officers.] 



The Church School. 177 

3. The Senior Circle shall hold a meeting 
every week. Once every quarter it shall be 
known as the social session, Three times 
every quarter the meetings shall be known 
as the lecture session. Nine times a quarter 
they shall be called lesson sessions. [The social 
session is designed to be a sort of conversazione, 
or literary gathering for social conversation, the 
examination of pictures and maps, the reading 
of essays, etc., etc. ; this meeting to be free 
from formality and restraint, and calculated to 
mingle the freedom of a Church sociable with 
the higher ends of literary associations. Such 
literary meetings are now quite common among 
select circles in the Church. The Senior Circle 
will aim to popularize them. At the lecture ses- 
sion some scientific subject may be taken up, 
and illustrated by diagrams, experiments, etc. 
Popular lectures on chemistry, astronomy, pho- 
tography, telegraphy, etc., etc., prepared by home 
talent and in the interest of Christianity, would 

soon awaken an interest in that Church and its 

12 



178 The Church School. 

school, and secure the best talent of the com- 
munity to do a grand work in the way of relig- 
ious culture for all concerned. The lesson ses- 
sions should be devoted to the study of the semi- 
secular phases of the Bible, which can have 
little or no place in the regular Sunday school 
exercises, such as outlines of Bible history, the 
geography of the Bible, its manners and cus- 
toms, natural history, civil and religious regula- 
tions, etc., etc., a department full of fascination, 
throwing light upon all parts of the holy Book, 
and yet but little known by the mass of even 
Christian people.* 

4. The Senior Circle must never interfere 
with the Sunday school and its established 
meetings, -nor under any circumstances hold 
Sunday sessions. [While the organizations are 
entirely distinct, the Circle is designed to encour- 
age and foster the school by attracting to it the 
older portion of the community.] 

* We shall speak more at length on this subject in the next 
chapter. 



The Church School. 179 

5. There shall be two grades or classes of 
members in the Senior Circle. First, the pledged : 
those who as:ree to attend regularly the sessions 
of the Sunday school and the Senior Circle, 
prepare all lessons required, and obey the regu- 
lations adopted. From this class the Board of 
Managers must be elected. Secondly, the in- 
vited, who may, by vote of the pledged members, 
be enrolled as members of the Circle. The 
invited members are entitled to all the advan- 
tages of the Circle except the right to vote and 
hold office. No person under fifteen years of 
age can be a pledged member. 




Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come 
again to me, that I may here cast lots for you before the 
Lord in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the 
land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book. 

Come over into Macedonia, and help us. 

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, 
avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of 
science falsely so called. 

Give all thou canst : high heaven rejects the lore 
Of nicelv calculated less or more. — Wordsworth. 




CHAPTER XI. 

COLLATER A L AIDS. 
" Give thyself wholly to them." — i Tim. iv, 15. 

T^HE Bible is an immense book. It is as 
wonderful for its richness and variety as 
for its magnitude. There is scarcely a branch 
of human knowledge upon which it does not 
shed some light. It is a book of diverse 
sciences, albeit its central science is that of 
salvation. To this all the rest bow as the 
sheaves of Hebron and the stars cf heaven 
bowed to Joseph. 

In the unfolding of the plan of redemption 
which the Bible records we find a treasure of 
history, of biography, of geography, of ancient, 
peculiar, and almost forgotten usages, of philos- 
ophy, of ethics, of theology — such as no other 
book in the world contains. Now if a man 



1 82 The Church School. 

would be head-master of the school in which 
this great volume is the text-book, he must 
indeed give himself wholly to these things. 
He has no time for any thing else. He must 
be literally homo unitis libri. 

The minister who becomes an enthusiastic 
pastor and teacher will find the pulpit a limited 
sphere and the Sabbath but a small portion of 
the time he needs for exposition, and for train- 
ing his people in the contents of the Book. 
Prizing all the knowledge which God has there 
communicated, he seeks to awaken in his young 
people and among the old an intense delight in 
truth. He trains them in Bible history and biog- 
raphy, knowing how much is lost by not taking up 
its events in their due chronological order. He 
trains his people in Bible geography — for how 
can one adequately comprehend history without 
geography ? Is not the Bible full of geography ? 
And do not the lands of the Bible yet remain 
singularly unchanged in most of their features, 
as though God would preserve the land to com- 



The Church School. 183 

plement and thus corroborate and illustrate the 
Book ? The old customs — domestic, political, 
religious — how they are inwrought into the 
very texture of the divine poetry, prophecy, and 
precept ! One cannot clearly interpret the Word 
unless he knows these customs. And does not 
the far East still hold them ? Are they not 
glowing on granite and marble walls in Egypt ? 
Do not the clay books of Nineveh and Babylon 
perpetuate the knowledge of them ? Our wholly 
consecrated Pastor brings land and book, custom 
and book, picture and book together. The one 
explains the other. The young people who 
cared little for the Bible at first have been led 
into the very heart of it by way of Egypt and 
Sinai and Syria and Nineveh. They looked 
eagerly at the "stones" he showed them, and 
lo ! they found written on them the command- 
ments of God.* 

The Bible is a book of doctrines. The 
Church Catechism is a systematic arrangement 

* See account of the Palestine Class, Appendix V. 



184 The Church School. 

of these doctrines. They are there formulated. 
They are to be buried in the mind of childhood 
as the conduits and water-pipes are laid under 
a city. For a time they seem almost useless ; 
hidden and forgotten. But lo ! one day the 
gates in the reservoir are hoisted, and through 
the buried pipes rushes a stream of cold, re- 
freshing, delightful, life-giving water. So our 
Pastor believes in the " dry formulas " of faith ; 
but he teaches them in so pleasant a manner 
that they never seem dry to his scholars, and 
betimes, and before a long time too, the streams 
of salvation flow through them. 

The Church is also an army. The Pastor 
knows this well, and all the week keeps his people 
drilling and warring and working. He raises up 
from among his little people a band of willing 
laborers and brave soldiers. He scatters tracts 
by their hands. He collects by their aid mis- 
sionary money. He distributes Bibles, he visits 
the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned through 
his busy people. 



The Church School. 185 

Knowing that service rendered is all the more 
zealously and efficiently performed if it be intel- 
ligent service, he trains his people in missionary 
work. They know the missionary maps and the 
various fields of missionary labor the peculiar 
difficulties to be there overcome, the measure of 
success achieved already, the work remaining 
to be done. 

He moreover trains his people in all kinds of 
Christian work, and makes them acquainted as 
far as possible with the history of eleemosynary 
institutions and brotherhoods the world over. 
His Church is itself a " College for Bible stu- 
dents and for Christian workers." 

Science is busy. He exalts science, but 
never above the God of science ; and he strips 
infidelity of all its modern pretenses and soph- 
isms, never for a moment admitting the pos- 
sibility that revelation may yet succumb to 
"reason," or scientific culture displace the old- 
fashioned Gospel. He understands science, and 
tries to awaken in his membership, old and 



i86 The Church School. 

young, an admiration for it ; but in this he 
never loses sight, nor allows them to lose sight, 
of the cross of Christ. 

The consecrated Pastor trains up teachers 
from the senior scholars. He believes in normal 
classes. He graduates a band of well-trained 
young people every year, appointing them to 
office in the presence of the whole congrega- 
tion, and requiring of them certain sacred vows 
before he accepts their service.* 

Such a Pastor finds perpetual delight in the 
word and the work of the Lord. And need we 
say that the Lord himself delighteth in such 
service and in such servants ? 

* See Appendix VI. 




Except the Lord build trie house, 
They labor in vain that build it : 
Except the Lord keep the city, 
The watchman waketh but in vain. 

This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, 
Not by might, nor by power, 
But by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. 

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of 
truth. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE GREAT NEEDS. 

" Go . . . teach (disciple) all nations. . . ; teaching (in- 
structing) them. . . ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." — Matt, xxviii, 20. 

r I ^HE first and main want of the modern 
Sunday school is the Master's presence. 
The spiritual mission of the institution has been 
forgotten, less by the talkers at conventions 
than by the great majority of teachers who 
never attend conventions. The theory of the 
few outreaches the practice of the many. We 
have reason to fear that there are many teachers 
who make no personal religious appeals to their 
pupils, who never pray with them, in whose 
classes young persons have remained for years 
without a knowledge of Christ, without any 
deep-wrought convictions, and even without 



190 The Church School. 

one zealous effort on the teacher's part for their 
conversion. Such classes and such schools 
seem to lack only one thing, but it is the one 
thing needful. Enthusiasm, numbers, attract- 
iveness, and a score of other charms they may 
possess, but O ! where is the Master ? 

We trace this lamentable lack to the indefi- 
nite if not incorrect theories which underlie 
the Sunday school. If what we build be a 
breakwater instead of a light-house, why be 
surprised that no rays fall upon the black night 
from its summit ? If the Sunday school is a 
human, subordinate, temporary substitute, inde- 
pendent of the Church and without Divine 
authority, who can wonder that the Divine co- 
operation has not been sought or secured ! If 
it is organized merely to hold childhood until 
the Church itself shall come with diviner 
powers, we need not measure its worth by any 
spiritual result, and may expect that in the 
zeal to perfect its organization, display its drill 
in music, martial movement, and biblical schol- 



The Church School. 191 

arship, it will too often forget to pass its pupils 
over to the Church, and not unfrequently alien- 
ate them from it. But the school is more than 
this theory allows, and it needs first and always 
the Divine co-operation. No degree of conven- 
ience and elegance in architectural arrange- 
ments, no completeness in appointments, no 
precision and harmony of movement in disci- 
pline, no thoroughness in intellectual training, no 
impressive proprieties in devotional service, no 
ingenious illustrations from the superintendent's 
desk or blackboard, no eloquence in occasional 
addresses — none of these things can compen- 
sate for the absence of the "power" which the 
Holy Ghost alone imparts. The Masters pres- 
ence is indispensable, for ours is the school of 
Christ. We certainly need the Spirit in the 
school of the Word, because the Word is the 
" sword of the Spirit." 

Next to the Master's presence the modern 
Sunday school craves ecclesiastical recognition 
as a means of grace. The Methodist Church 



192 The Church School. 

owes more than she can estimate to her system 
of class-meetings. By this she has maintained 
a permanent pastorate in connection with the 
itinerancy. The class leaders are the Pas- 
tor's assistants — sub-Pastors. We have often 
asked, Why may not the groupings or classes 
of the Sunday school be incorporated in the 
arrangements of the Church ? Thus we should 
secure unity of plan, and at the same time 
increase the number of the Pastor's authorized 
helpers. 

Are the objects and appropriate methods of the 
Church and school classes so diverse as to render 
this impracticable ? The Church class seeks 
the advancement of each believer in the divine 
life ; it encourages the free expression of his 
convictions, needs, and attainments ; it rebukes, 
exhorts, admonishes, and instructs, building 
him up in Christian knowledge and purity. To 
the inquirer it is the Interpreter's house, where 
many great truths are for the first time ex- 
plained to him. Now precisely what the 



The Church School. 193 

Church class scholar needs our Sunday school 
scholar needs — frank conversation about the 
way of life, admonition, exhortation, instruction, 
and encouragement — all tending to growth in 
grace. We claim that this is the true object of 
the Church school. It is a spiritual, not an in- 
tellectual gymnasium. It strikes at the heart. 
Alas ! that we have so few such schools. Our 
most approved teachers have inquired more 
after method than after power. To recite well 
every Sabbath, and not so much to live near 
to Christ and to work for Christ every day, has 
been the great aim of many of our most cele- 
brated schools. 

We would fain impress Pastors, teachers, 
superintendents, and scholars with the fact that 
the Sunday school is designed to strengthen 
religious character and experience ; and that 
what the faithful class leader would do for his 
class member, the faithful Sunday school teacher 
should do for his scholar. " But all Sunday 

scholars are not Chyrch members." Full mem- 
13 



194 The Church School. 

bers by faith and baptism, alas ! no ; perhaps 
not even probationers or seekers. We have not 
been sufficiently aiming at this. We have not 
informed our pupils upon their admission to the 
school that we could not do our best work for 
them until they had given themselves to Christ. 
And we fear that a large majority of the Sunday 
school scholars are unconverted. Though not 
" full members," " probationers," or "seekers," 
do these scholars sustain no relation to the 
Church ? " Baptized members from infancy, 
perhaps." But for them we organize Church 
classes. Are all other scholars outside of the 
Church, in such a sense as to render the class 
arrangement inappropriate and unprofitable ? 
We hold them by parental authority, and gen- 
erally by their own consent, and we claim that 
as candidates for baptism — " catechumens " like 
those of old — they are in some sense connected 
with the Church. They walk at least in the 
outer courts, and we may more easily than we 
think (because Christ is with us) lead them up 



The Church School. 195 

through the gate Beautiful into the higher courts 
of the Lord's house. The catechumens need 
the pastoral and sub-pastoral care. By virtue 
of their relation to the Church through the fam- 
ilies to which they belong, we are directed in 
the Discipline to visit and instruct them. Shall 
their voluntary relation to the school of the 
Church grant us no similar or superior advan- 
tages ? We think that such interest in them, 
and such ecclesiastical relations guaranteed 
them, would exalt their view of the Church, 
and make them eager to enter her higher fel- 
lowships. 

" But would you turn the exercises of a Sun- 
day school class into those of a Church class ? " 
We should unquestionably correct the one-sided 
methods of each by a blending of their respect- 
ive characteristics. To the study of Scripture 
truth (the chief thing in the best Sunday school 
classes as now conducted) we should add the 
element of personal experience, (the main thing 
in the Church class.) The ever-present aim 



i<)6 The Church School. 

of the Sunday school teacher should be the 
spiritual profit of his scholars. The frankest 
expression of their religious doubts and desires 
should be encouraged. Every lesson should be 
examined with a view to the edification of each 
pupil. And if the Church class leader, follow- 
ing the Sunday school teacher's example, were 
to introduce more of the divine Word into the 
exercises of his weekly meeting, we are confi- 
dent that an element of interest and strength 
would be imparted to the service. Truth is the 
sword of the Spirit ; truth is the wire through 
which the celestial currents sweep. 

Father Reeves, the matchless class leader 
of Lambeth, knew the value of the Bible, and 
was never satisfied " until each member could 
for J rims elf prove from the Scripture every doc- 
trine he professed, and quote from Scripture the 
warrant for each promise, on the fulfillment of 
which he relied." He used occasionally to devote 
an entire session of his class to the study of a 
Scripture lesson, as a Bible class would. When 



The Church School. 197 

men of middle age, and old men who did not 
know how to read, were brought into his class 
he taught them. " And," said he, " we set apart 
a Sunday for them to read a portion of Holy 
Scripture to us, to hear how they improve, and 
to stimulate others to learn." * 

Can we forget the "Holy Club" at Oxford, 
with their week-evening meetings for reading 
the Greek Testament and the ancient classics, 
and on Sunday evenings their studies in divin- 
ity ? "They built me up daily," says George 
Whitefield, " in the knowledge and fear of God, 
and taught me to endure hardness as a good 
soldier of Jesus Christ." 

We say, then, let us make the Church class a 

* The biographer of Father. Reeves, after reporting his 
method of conducting class, says, " Rather novel this ! some 
may be disposed to exclaim. Yes ; but let them that say so 
think again, and they will acknowledge it undeniably good. 
This excellent leader would not have his members satisfied 
until they could prove from Scripture the soundness of their 
faith, and until, to the joy of their souls, they could read for 
themselves in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. 
May such leaders and members be multiplied ! n 



198 The Church School. 

Bible school for spiritual growth, and its leader 
a teacher ; and let the Sunday school class be- 
come a Bible school for spiritual growth, and its 
teacher a leader. This arrangement will not 
interfere with, but rather benefit, the love-feasts 
and general classes of the Church, increase the 
though tfulness and stability of Christians, render 
the preaching of God's word a greater delight, 
and enable us to retain in the Church the mul- 
titudes of young people who now every year 
drop out of our schools through the lack of 
Church sympathy, of adult attendance, intel- 
lectual food, and spiritual influence. 

The next most urgent demand of the Sunday 
school is to be met by earnest, trained Christian 
teachers. We would not raise an impracticable 
standard here. First the teacher should have 
a general knowledge of the plan of salvation ; 
then that experience of God's grace which 
makes the plan precious and real. These will 
be accompanied by a love for the " word of his 
<rrace." Then he needs the will to wrest time 



The Church School. 199 

enough from the world's grasp every week for a 
careful preparation of the lesson ; love enough 
for the scholars and that truth to make the 
teacher simple, conversational, and straightfor- 
ward in his manner; tact to draw out the 
scholars' own thought, and concentrate their 
attention upon the one central truth of the 
lesson. These will give the teacher, under the 
divine blessing, abundant success. 

After this, the more biblical and scientific 
knowledge the teacher has the better. Mere 
intellectual brilliancy and force, without heart 
or Christ — away with them ! and away with all 
lifeless systems of teaching ! We love system, 
and believe in thorough analysis in order to 
exhaustive exegesis, but let this be attended to 
in the study at home. In the class, let our 
method be that of free and wisely-directed con- 
versation, arresting the attention of all, eliciting 
the opinions and experiences of each, and lead- 
ing to profitable self-application. 

The personal character of the teacher is of 



2oo The Church School. 

paramount importance. Piety is as indispen- 
sable here as in the class leader and pastor. 
The teachers character is a perpetual presence 
with the scholar, so that it is itself a constant 
teacher. Through his influence the sown seed 
of the Sabbath is growing seven days in produc- 
tive soil, though the teacher "knoweth not 
how." Frivolity, love of dress and pleasure, 
carelessness, indifference, unkindness, superfi- 
ciality and vagueness in teaching — these, too, 
are seed, and they drop in the soil and grow, 
and what wonder if they choke the seed of the 
kingdom in the pupil's soul ? 

Blessed is he whose whole soul is given up 
to this work of teaching the word of God ! He 
is blessed here, for the study of the truth makes 
him even now free on the earth. Then, moreover, 
the fruit is often gathered this side the New Jeru- 
salem. There are teachers now living to whom 
their scholars have said : " Thanks, ten thousand 
thanks, for your faithful service. Lo ! it has 
brought us to Christ ! " Now this is heaven itself. 



The Church School. 201 

Such a teacher will be blessed hereafter — 
eternally blessed ! Do you not hear the words 
already falling from His lips who shall sit upon 
the " throne of His glory ? " Hark ! 

Gome, tie bterii of inq $ atj)er, injpit \)t kingtrnm prepared for 
tp from tt)e foundation of tlje tMlii. . . . BBrttq 3 sail unto tp, 
Snasmncji an tie tjane toe it unto one of tlje least of tlie.se inti 
hre;!)ren, tie [jane to it unto me. JEatt. xxn, 34, 4D. 




APPENDIX. 



"IT7K are confident that the following additional testimonies, 

' ' (from Dr. Bingham,) concerning the devotion of the early 

Church to the AVord of God, will be acceptable to our readers: 

It is noted by Sozomen and Palladius of Marcus the Hermit, 
that he was so expert in the Scriptures when he was but a 
youth that he could repeat all the Old and New Testament 
without a book; and it is observable, that as there were many 
catechetic schools in those times for explaining the Scriptures 
to the catechumens, so there were also schools appointed in many 
Churdies to instruct the youth in the hnoioledge of the Scriptures. 
When Gregory, the apostle of the Armenians, first converted 
that nation, it is said in his Life that he set up schools in 
every city, and masters over them, by the king's command, to 
teach the Armenian children to read the Bible : and Theodoret 
relates a remarkable story of Protogenes the scribe, that when 
Valens, the Arian emperor, banished him to Antinoe, in Thebais, 
in the utmost parts of Egypt, he, finding the greatest part of 



204 The Church School. 

the city to bo heathens, set up a charity school among them, and 
taught them the Holy Scriptures, dictating to them in writing 
short-hand David's Psalms, and making them learn such doctrines 
of the apostolical writings as-were proper for them to understand, 
by which means he brought many, both of the children and parents, 
over to the Christian faith. And it has been observed before, 
that, by the canons of some councils, such sort of charity 
schools were appointed to be set up in cathedrals and other 
churches, where, no doubt, according to the custom of those 
days, children were taught to read the Scriptures. These 
rules were renewed in several councils under Charles the 
Great and the following princes. Particularly in the Second 
Council of Chalons, anno 813. it was appointed, that according 
to the order of Charles the Pmiperor, bishops should set up 
schools to teach both grammar and the knowledge of the 
Scriptures; and in the Council of Toul. or Savonieres, in Lor- 
raine, the decree was renewed, that schools of the Holy 
Scripture and human learning should be erected; forasmuch 
as, by the care of the religious emperors in former days, by 
this means both ecclesiastical knowledge and human learning 
had made a considerable progress in the world; and Mr. 
Wharton will furnish the inquisitive reader with many other 
rules and canons, made about the same time, to promote and 
encourage the learning of the Scriptures. 

Eusebius says of the Holy Scriptures: "They were trans- 
lated into all languages, both of Greeks and barbarians, 



Appendix. 205 

throughout the world, and studied by all nations as the oracles 
of God." Chrysostom assures us that "the Syrians, the 
Egyptians, the Indians, the Persians, the Ethiopians, and a 
multitude of other nations, translated them into their own 
tongues, whereby barbarians learned to be ])hilosophers, and 
women and children with the greatest ease imbibed the doctrine 
of the Gospel." 1 Theodoret says the same, that "every nation 
under heaven had the Scripture in their own tongue. The 
Hebrew books were not only translated into Greek, but into 
the "Roman, Egyptian, Persian, Indian, Armenian, Scythian, 
and Sauromatic languages, and, in a word, into all tongues 
used by all nations in his time.'' The like is attested by 
St. Jerome, St. Austin, and many others. 

" Constantine himself, 1 ' as is observed by Eusebius, "was 
wont to employ himself in the Church, partly by joining in the 
public prayers with the people, and partly by taking the books 
of the divine oracles into his hands and exercising his mind in 
the contemplation of them; " and probably for this reason lie 
ordered Eusebius to prepare fifty copies of the Bible for the 
use of the Church of Constantinople, as his letter to Eusebius 
witnesses; for it is observed, and spoken to his praise by 
Eusebius in another place, that by his means "innumerable 
multitudes, both of men and women, exchanged the food of 
their bodies for that of their souls, that rational food which 
was so agreeable to rational minds, and which they obtained 
by reading the Holy Scriptures." 



2o6 The Church School. 

The testimony of Chiysostom : u For this reason," says he 
to the people to whom lie preached, " we often acquaint you 
many days beforehand with the subject of our discourse, that, tak- 
ing the Bible into your hands in the mean time, and running over 
the -whole passage, you may have your minds better prepared to 
hear what is to be spoken. And tins is the thing I have always 
advised, and shall still continue to exhort yon to, that you 
should not only hear what is said in this place, but spend your 
time at home continually in reading the Holy Scriptures. And 
here let no one use those frigid and vain excuses : I am a man 
engaged in the business of the law ; I am taken up with civil 
affaiisj I am a tradesman; I have a wife, and children to breed 
up ; I have the care of a family ; I am a secular man, it belongs 
not to me to read the Scriptures, but to those that have bid 
adieu to the world and are retired into the mountains, and 
have nothing else to do but to exercise themselves in such a 
way of living. What sayest thou, man? Is it not thy bus- 
iness to read the Scriptures, because thou art distracted with a 
multitude of other cares ? Yes, certainly, it belongs to thee 
more than them ; for they have not so much need of the help 
of the Holy Scriptures as you have who are tossed in the 
waves of the multiplicity of business." Then, enumerating 
what sins and temptations secular men are exposed to, he in- 
fers that they have perpetual need of divine remedies, as well 
to cure the wounds they have already received, as to ward off 
those they are in danger of receiving; to quench the darts of 



Appendix. 207 

the devil while Miey are at a distance, and drive them away, by 
continual reading of the Holy Scriptures; for it is impossible 
that a man should attain salvatiou without perpetual exercise 
in reading spiritual things. 

11 Take the book into thy hands, read the whole history, and 
remember those things that are intelligible and easy ; and 
those things that are more obscure and dark read over and 
over again; and if thou canst not by frequent reading dive 
into the meaning of what is said, go to a wiser person, betake 
thyself to a teacher, and confer with him about any such 
passage; show thy diligence, and desire to be informed. . . . 

11 The reading of the Scriptures is our great guard against sin. 
Our ignorance of them is a dangerous precipice and a deep 
gulf; it is an absolute betraying of our salvation to know 
nothing of the Divine law. It is this that has brought forth so 
many heresies; this, that has brought so much corruption 
into our lives; this, that has turned all things into confusion." 

— CHRYS0ST03I. 

For it is very observable, further, that in the primitive 
Church not only men and women, but children, were encour- 
aged and trained up from their infancy to the reading of the 
Holy Scriptures ; and the catechumens were not only admitted 
to some of the prayers of the Church peculiarly appropriated 
to their condition, but also obliged to learn the Scriptures, as 
part of their discipline and instruction. . . . 

All, then, that is further here to be showed is, that children 



2o8 The Church School. 

were trained up to the use of the Holy Scriptures. And of 
this we have undoubted evidence from many eminent 
instances of their practice. 



II. 

CATECHETICS. 



For an elaborate, learned, and exhaustive discussion of the 
whole question of catechistic theory and practice we refer our 
readers to M'Clintock & Strong's u C}~clopedia of Biblical, 
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature," from which we 
quote a few extracts from the proof-sheets forwarded to 
the author by Dr. M'Clintock himself a short time before 
his death: 

The science of Catechetics, as such, can hardly be said to 
have taken its rise until after the Reformation. But as the 
necessities of the case gave rise to oral instruction in Chris- 
tianity from the very beginning, and to the subsequent devel- 
opment of this instruction into a systematic branch of Church 
activity, we find indications of Catechetics at all periods. 

1. Before the Reformation. — The first teaching of Christ and 
his apostles was necessarily oral, and partly horailetical, partly 
catechetical. But we find no mention in the New Testament 
of catechists as Church functionaries. In the second century 



Appendix. 209 

we find mention of cateclrists and catechumens, (for example, 
in the "Clementines.'') Under the catechetical system of the 
fourth century the catechumens were taught the ten com- 
mandments, a creed, or summary confession of faith, and tho 
Lord's prayer, with suitable expositions; but, prior to bap- 
tism, the nature of the sacraments was carefully concealed. 
(See " Arcani Disciplina:" Catechumen.) The "Apostolical 
Constitutions" not only mention the catechumens, but fix 
three years as the period of instruction, (viii, 32.) In Gregory 
of Nyssa's (f 39-1) 7.6yog /canrp/r^/cyc 6 fieyag (ed. Krabinger, 
Monac. 1835.) and in Cyril of Jerusalem's (f 3S6) KarTjXT/oet^ 
(Catechetical discourses) we find catechetical instruction for 
both proselytes and newly -baptized persons. Augustine wrote 
a tract, "De Catechizandis rudibus," (opp. t. vi.) After the 
Church had become established, and its increase was obtained 
by the birth and baptism of children rather than by conver- 
sions from heathendom, the idea of catechetical instruction 
passed from being that of a preparation for baptism to being 
that of a culture of baptized children. When confirmation 
became general, catechetical instruction began to bear the 
same relation to it that it had formerly done to baptism. In 
the missions to heathens, in the Middle Ages, it became usual 
to baptize converts at once, and the ancient catechumenate fell 
into disuse. Nor was great attention given to the catechizing 
of baptized children in the Roman Church up to the time 

of the Reformation; the confessional took the place of the 

14 



2io The Church School. 

Catechism. , . . The names of Bruno, Eisbop of Wurzburg, 
(eleventh century,) Hugo de Sta. Yictore, Otto of Bamberg, 
and John Gerson, are to be mentioned as active in restoring 
catechetical instruction. The Waldenses, TVicliffites, and other 
reforming sects, gave attention to the subject. . . . 

2. Since the Reformation. — As the Reformation was a revival 
of religion for the human intellect as well as for the heart, it 
naturally followed that the training of children soon came 
to demand new methods, or the restoration of old methods, of 
grounding them in the faith. Luther was the father of mod- 
ern catechetics, both by the Catechisms which he himself pre- 
pared, and by the writings in which he explained Catechetics 
and gave an impulse to their pursuit. The principal points of 
Luther's Catechisms are the Decalogue, the Creed, the Lord's 
prayer, and the Sacraments, (1529.) Luther, with true in- 
sight, however, taught that catechization should not merely 
include the hearing of a recitation from the book, but also an 
explanation and an application of it to the hearts of the piupils. 
(See prefaces to his larger and smaller Catechisms, and also 
Bnistlein, "Luther's Einflnss auf das Volksschulwesen," etc., 
Jena, 1852.) Calvin also published Catechisms, (1536, 1541,) 
and in the preface to the "Catechismus P^ccles. Genevensis " 
he gave his views of the nature and design of Catechisms and 
of catechetical instruction at length. . . . The Reformed 
Churches generally followed : for example, the Heidelberg 
Catechism (1563) for the German Reformed ; the Church of 



Appendix. 211 

England Catechism, (1553, 1572,) etc. The Helvetic Confes- 
sion (brevis et simplex) makes catecliization a duty of positive 
obligation in the Church. ... In Germany, after the fervor 
of the .Reformation period had passed, and the scholastic 
theologians reigned, the catechetical instruction degenerated 
into a mere formal routine of preparation for confirmation, and 
the same thing happened in the Church of England. Indeed, 
this result appears to be inevitable where baptismal regenera- 
tion is believed, and confirmation is made to follow as a matter 
of course. Spener and the Pietists gave new life to catechet- 
ical instruction by connecting it with spiritual teaching and 
life. (See Hurst, "History of Rationalism," p. 90; Tliilo, 
"Spener als Katechet," Berlin, 1840.) The Church of Borne 
was compelled to follow the Reformers in catechetical instruc- 
tion ; the " Catechismus Romanus " (1566) became the basis 
of numerous Catechisms — those of Canisius, Bellarmin, Bos- 
suet, and Fleury, attaining the widest circulation. As any 
bishop can authorize a Catechism for his diocese, the Roman- 
ists have now a great variety, and they are still increasing. 
(See " Theologische Quartalschrift," 1863, p. 443.) 

The theory of catecliization in the Protestant Church grew 
up gradually from the germs in Luther's teaching, through the 
period of decay and dry scholasticism, and finally shot up into 
full bloom in Pietism. Its principles are, 1. That the Catechism 
of the Church, stamped with its authority, shall be used in in- 
struction ; 2. That the instruction is not Socratic, that is, does 



212 The Church School. 

not aim to draw out what is in the mind of the pupil, but rather 
to convey revealed truth to the mind in a way which it can ap- 
preciate and understand ; 3. That while the pupil is to learn 
the words of the Cattchism by heart, the teacher is to explain 
and illustrate them from the Bible, and to enforce on the he;irt 
and conscience of the catechumen — tha*" is, catechization is to be 
not merely didactic, but practical. It is further well settled 
that the Catechism of each particular Church should be taught 
to the children of that Church (1) by parents or guardians in 
the family; (2) by the Sunday school teacher, who should 
always be a constant catechist ; and (3) by the pastor, whose 
catechization should not only be a test of the proficiency of the 
children under home and Sunday school instruction, but should 
include exhortation, illustration, and application also. It was 
one of Speiier's glories that he introduced public catechization; 
and the Pastor who fails, at fixed time?, to catechize the chil- 
dren in presence of the congregation, loses one of the most im- 
portant means of Christian culture within the sphere of Church 
life. 

Dr. Aslibel Green, ("Lectures on the Shorter Catechism," 
vol. i,) in his Introductory Lecture, thus speaks of the advan- 
tages of c-ttechization : " The catechetical or questionary form 
of religious summaries renders them most easy and interesting 
to children and youth, and, indeed, to Christians of all ages and 
descriptions. For myself, I have no reluctance to state here 
publicly what I have frequently mentioned in private, that in 



Appendix. 213 

the composition of sermons one of the readiest and best aids I 
have ever found has been my Catechism. Let me add, further, 
that long observation has satisfied me that a principal reason 
why instruction and exhortation from the pulpit are so little 
efficacious is, that they presuppose a degree of information, or 
acquaintance with the truths and doctrines of divine revelation, 
which, by a great part of the heareis, is not possessed, and 
which would best of all have been supplied by catechetical in- 
struction. It is exactly this kind of instruction which is at the 
present time most urgently needed in many, perhaps in most of 
our congregations. It is needed to imbue effectually the minds 
of our people ^ith ' the first principles of the oracles of God,' 
to indoctiinate them soundly and systematically in revealed 
truth, and thus to guard them against being 'carried about 
with every wind of doctrine,' as well as to qualify them to join 
in the weekly service of the sanctuary with full understanding, 
and with minds in all respects prepared for the right and deep 
impression of what they hear." 

The duty of catechization is enjoined in the laws of almost 
all branches of the Church. In the Church of England, by 
Canon 59, ;i every parson, vicar, or curate, upon every Sunday 
and holyday, before evening prayer, shall, for half an hour or 
more, examine and instruct the youth and ignorant persons of 
his parish in the Ten Commandments, the articles of the belief) 
and in the Lord's Prayer; and shall diligently hear, instruct, 
and teach them the Catechism set forth in the Book of Common 



214 The Church School. 

Prayer. And all fathers', mothers, masters, and mistresses 
shall cause their children, servants, and apprentices, who 
have not learned the Catechism, to come to the church at the 
time appointed, obediently to hear, and to be ordered by the 
minister until they have learned the same. And if any minister 
neglect his duty herein, let him be sharply reproved upon the 
first complaint, and true notice thereof given to the bishop or 
ordinary of the place. If, after submitting himself, he shall 
willingly offend therein again, let him be suspended. If so the 
third time, there being little hope that he will be therein re- 
formed, then excommunicated, and so remain until he be 
reformed. And likewise, if any of the said fathers, mothers, 
masters, or mistresses, children, servants, or apprentices, shall 
neglect their duties as the one sort in not causing them to 
come, and the other in refusing to learn, as aforesaid, let them be 
suspended by their ordinaries, (if they be not children.) and if 
the} r so persist by the space of a month, then let them be ex- 
communicated. And by the rubric, the curate of every parish 
shall diligently, upon Sundays and hoh r days, after the second 
lesson at evening prayer, openly in the church, instruct and 
examine so many children of the parish sent unto him as he 
shall think convenient, in some part of the Catechism. And all 
fa livers and mothers, masters and dames, shall cause their chil- 
dren, servants, and apprentices (who have not learned their 
Catechism) to come to the church at the time appointed, and 
obediently to hear, and be ordered by the curate, until such 



Appendix. 215 

time as they have learnei all that therein is appointed for them 
to learn." These stringent rules, however, have nea'ly become 
a dead letter. In the Protestant Episcopal Church, thexxviiith 
Canon (of 1832) enjoins that "the ministers of this Church who 
have charge of parishes or cures shall not only he diligent in in- 
structing the children in the Catechism, but shall also, by stated 
catechetical lectures and instruction, be diligent in informing 
the youth and others in the doctrines, constitution, and liturgy 
of the Church." The Methodist Episcopal Church makes it the 
"duty of preachers to see that the Catechism is used in Sunday 
schools and families, to preach to the children, and to publicly 
catechise them in the Sunday schools and at public meetings ap- 
pointed for that purpose." (Discipline, part v, § 2.) "It shall 
also be the duty of each preacher, in his report to each quarterly 
conference, to state to what extent he has publicly or privately 
catechised the children of his charge." (Pare ii, chap, ii, § 17.) 
" At the age of ten years, or earlier, the preacher in charge 
shall organize the baptized children of the Church into classes, 
and appoint suitable leaders, male or female, whose duty it 
shall be to meet them in class once a week, and instruct them 
in the nature, design, and obligation of baptism, and truths of 
religion necessary to make- them wise unto salvation." (Part i, 
chap, ii, § 2.) The Presbyterian Church makes catechising 
u one of the ordinances in a particular Church," ("Form of Gov- 
ernment," chap, vii.) and enjoins the duty in its " Directory for 
Worship," chap, i, § 6 ; also chap. ix. § 1: "Children born 



2i6 The Church School. 

within the pale of the visible Church, and dedicated to God in 
baptism, are under the inspection and government of the 
Church, and are to be taught the Catechism, the Apostles' 
Creed, and the Lord's prayer." In the Reformed Church each 
Pastor is bound to expound the Heidelberg Catechism, and the 
Classis is bound to Fee that i( the catechising of children and 
youth are faithfully attended to." (Constitution, chap, i, art. 
iii, § 8.) The Lutheran and German Reformed Churches, not 
only by their traditions, but also by Church law, are bound to 
fidelitv in catechisation. 



III. 

Rev. JOSEPH ALLEIXE and the CATECHISM. 

[From his Biography, J 

During the time of his public ministry, on every Lord's day 
in the afternoon, he constantly catechised, before a great con- 
gregation, the youth of each sex by turns, among whom were 
several both young men and women, sometimes five or six of 
the chief scholars of the free school, sometimes five or six of 
the apprentices of the town, some of whom, though of man's 
estate, accounted it not a disgrace to learn, (according to the 
guise of this mad world.) but to be ignorant. Sometimes of 
the other sex, five or six young gentlewomen, who were under 
his wife's tuition, (and so his domestic oversight.) kept their 
turns, of \vh<»m she had not a few, and those the daughters of 



Appendix. 217 

gentlemen of good rank far and near, whose laudable emula- 
tion, and love to their father (as they styled him) and to the 
work, was the cause why the3 r were not so overbashful as to de- 
cline so advantageous a course; by which, together with domes- 
tic instructions and example, even all received a tincture of 
piety and religion, and many a thorough impression ; besides 
these, several virgins also, and among these the daughters of 
some of the chief magistrates in the town, kept their turn". 
In this his course he drew out. on the short answers in the 
Assembly's Catechism, an excellent discourse on all the 
points of the Christian theology, which he handled success- 
fully, reducing his discourse to several heads, which he also 
proved by pertinent places of Scripture; which done, he 
gave both the heads and proofs, written at length, on a week- 
day, to those whom he designed to catechise on the ensuing 
Lord's day, which, besides the short answers in the Catechism 
and the annexed proofs, they committed to memory, and ren- 
dered on the afternoon of the day aforesaid. Throughout all 
which course he approved himself to be a most substantial 
divine. 

Neither did his catechistical labors rest here, but also on 
Thursdays in the afternoon, as I remember, he catechised in 
the church, street by street, whole families, excepting the 
married or more aged, in order ; which exercise, I suppose, he 
designed as preparatory to his Lord's-day work. Besides this, 
on Saturdavs. in the morning, he catechised the ^vee school of 



2i8 The Church School. 

that place, instructing th^m in the points of Christian doctrine, 
and excellently explaining the answers in the Assembly's Cate- 
chism, discovering a mine of knowledge in them and in himself. 



IV. 

EDUCATION AMONG THE JEWS. 
The following is from Rabbi Raphael, in Barnard's " Ameri- 
can Journal of Education: " 

Tt may be assumed that education was looked upon as a 
religious duty, and therefore intrusted to the Priests and 
Levites. It is certain that in process of time these teachers 
neglected their duty to such a degree that Samuel found it 
necessary to introduce a new and enlarged system. He 
therefore founded the schools of the prophets, open to all 
Israelites. Respecting the internal polity and the system of 
education in these schools we know but little. We must, 
however, not suppose that the Hebrew word Nabi, "prophet," 
bore the same signification in the days of Samuel that it ob- 
tained at a later period of scriptural history, namely, that of an 
"inspired prediction of future events " — such an inspired pre- 
diction in the days of Samuel was called Ro-eh, or Hhoseh, 
"a seer,'' (1 Sam. ix, 9.) whereas the word Nabi, "prophet," 
is used in Genesis xx, 7, and in Isaiah ix, 15, to designate a 
"teacher;" in Exodus viii, 1, an "orator;" in Exodus xv, 
20, and Judges iv, 4, a "poet," and in 1 Chronicles xxv, 



Appendix. 219 

passim, a "composer of music." This fourfold meaning of 
the word Xabi tells us what functions the "prophets" trained 
in these schools were intended to discharge. They were 
to be "teachers,"' "public orators," "poets," and "com- 
posers of sacred music," and the system of education 
was arranged accordingly. Ezra, though himself a priest, 
and " the men of the Great Assembly " over which he 
presided, again resorted to the plan of Samuel. Public 
schools of different degrees were every- where established ; 
the priests no longer remained ex officio sole instructors of the 
people, but were superseded by a new class of teachers, the 
" Sopherim," grammatds "scribes." Thenceforth the history 
of education among the Jews stands clearly before us. Each 
town in Judea containing a certain number of inhabitants 
was bound to maintain a primary school, the Hhasan, " pre- 
centor," of the synagogue, in most instances, being the 
teacher. Seminaries of a higher grade were presided over 
by Sopherim, "scribes," and a sufficient annual income was 
assigned for their support. 



V. 

THE PALESTINE CLASS. 
Sacred history, geography, and antiquities must be system- 
atically and thoroughly taught to our Sunday school children. 
And yet the sacred hours of the Sabbath usually devoted to 



220 The Church School. 

Sabbath school cannot be appropriated to these topics when 
truths so much more important — the doctrinal and practical — 
are to be especially considered. Now by what method may 
we impart such knowledge in an attractive way to these onr 
Sunday school students? Why may we not have a Sunday 
School Department devoted especially to these subjects ? 

I.— A Plan. 

1. Call such department the " Palestine Class," or "Class 
of Biblical Antiquities." 

2. Its meetings may be held on some week-day evening, or 
or Saturday afternoon. 

3. All persons should be invited to attend — adults and chil- 
dren — parents, teachers, pupils. 

4. The Pastor, or other competent person, may be its Presi- 
dent or its Teacher. A Chorister may be employed, to con- 
duct the musical exercises of the Class. The Secretary and 
Treasurer ma}- be elected by ballot, quarterly. 

5. The Church "Catechism," which most Pastors use in the 
Catechumen Class or Sunday school, may be introduced as a 
feature of this class. 

6. The Class to be divided into grades, through which schol- 
ars may pass successively as they progress. This insures 
thoroughness, and renders the Class exercise interesting. 

7. Select Committees of Examination and other officers 
from the highest grade at any time attained by the Class. 



Appendix. 221 

II. — Apparatus. 

1. The text- book employed by the Palestine Classes now 
organized is " Little Footprints in Bible Lands ; or, Simple 
Lessons in Sacred History or Geography," published by 
Methodist Book Concern, 805 Broadway, New York. Price, 
50 cents per copy. This little work contains historical and 
geographical recitations, geographical songs, maps, map charts, 
and a biblical gazetteer. 

2. For reference the following are the best : Prof. Whiting's 
"Hand-Book of Sacred Geography," Hibbard'3 "Palestine," 
and Thomson's ; * Land and Book." 

3. The cheapest Maps are those published by the Methodist 
Episcopal Sunday School Union, and for sale at the house 
above-mentioned. Our new Bible Maps : No. 1, " Scripture 
World," $5; No. 2, "Holy Land," $5. 

4. The text-book above referred to is divided into five series 
of lessons, corresponding to the five grades of the Class. For 
convenience and pleasure, the recitations are usually conducted 
by the concert method, but to insure personal thoroughness, 
each pupil is examined separately and placed according to his ad- 
vancement successively in his grade— " Pilgrim," " Resident," 
"Explorer," "Dweller in Jerusalem," and "Templar.'* 
By this simple, practicable, and pleasant plan, the liveliest in- 
terest may be maintained in the Class. For full explanations 
see "Little Footprints." pages 89, 90. 



222 The Church School. 

5. Certificates may be given to the members of each grade. 

6. Expenses for Maps, Books, Certificates, etc., may be met 
by occasional Exhibitions, at which " Conversations " on a trip to 
the Holy Land, Biblical incidents, Songs, etc., etc., will insure 
novelty, profit, and entertainment. 

7. Let the teacher keep a " Record," in which to enroll names 
of scholars in each grade; prepare his programme for each 
recitation in advance, and register the results of his private 
biblical researches. Such a record will become a most valu- 
able ''Cyclopedia." 

8. Use a small tea " Call-Bell," by which order and perfec- 
tion of drill may be maintained. 

9. Scholars should always bring Bibles with them for read- 
ing and reference. 

10. A Melodeon will be of great value in the singing and 
map exercises. 

III. Exercises. 

1. Let each session be short, and introduce as much variety 
in the exercises as possible. 

2. Take short lessons from the text-book, and secure prompt, 
spirited concert responses. 

3. Always read in concert some scriptural selection at the 
opening of the Class. 

4. G-ive all scholars an opportunity to present difficult ques- 
tions from the Bible, and let the same be answered by the 
Class the week after their announcement. 



Appendix. 223 

5. G-ive descriptions of sacred localities, distances from Jeru- 
salem, size, present condition, sacred associations, etc. Let 
scholars often repeat these facts, and record in blank book3 
for their own use. In this way they will soon become as 
familiar with the Holy Lands as with their own neighbor- 
hoods. 

6. Give a specified time (two months or longer) to each grade. 
Members of lower grades may be examined at any time for the 
higher already reached by the Class, but only at appointed times 
may the higher advance. For example : If the highest grade is 
"Explorer," any lower grade may be examined at any time to 
attain the "Explorer's." but not go beyond that until the ap- 
pointed time for the advance arrives. In this way new schol- 
ars can enter the Class and overtake the advanced ; while the 
advanced, by frequent repetition of old lessons, become more 
thorough. 

7. Let the teacher or President himself examine all candi- 
dates for the first or "Pilgrim" grade; after that let him ap- 
point "Examiners" for the Historical lessons, he himself con- 
ducting all map exercises in every grade. 



VI. 

SOLEMN COVENANTS. 
The Pastor will find it very profitable to develop in every 
possible way the religious zeal of his teachers. 



224 The Church School. 

The public reception" of Sunday school teachers should 
never be om&ted. 

The Church should extend its hand of welcome to the man 
who consecrates his gifts to the work of teaching in the Sab- 
bath school. A word of counsel and encouragement at that 
important stage may have a most salutary effect upon his fu- 
ture career. The public recognition would favorably impress 
the Church itself, and give the teacher increased power over 
his scholars. This course has been adopted in several schools 
already, and we have prepared a tract for this purpose, enti- 
tled "The Public Reception of Teachers." The following is 
the form of the 

Covenant. 

" I do solemnly promise to devote myself, with all diligence, 
to Sunday school labor. I will endeavor to study the word of 
God thoroughly and prayerfully; to spend as much time as 
possible in reading, meditation, and prayer, with special refer- 
ence to my work; as regularly as possible to attend all the 
means of grace; to visit my scholars as their temporal or 
spiritual necessities may require, and to be punctually present 
at school and all meetings of teachers." 




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